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Textile industries in Ethiopia were urged to enhance environmental protection in their treatment of effluents by the Ethiopian Textile Industry Development Institute.

The textile industry is a significant source of green house gases and all stakeholders in the sector need to put in place mechanisms to prevent environmental pollution noted Sileshi Lemma, Director General of the Institute at an awareness raising workshop held this week.  

Textile manufacturers need to use renewable sources of energy instead of fossil fuels towards limiting the impact on the environment said Amha Bekele, Research Laboratory Director with the ETIDI.

Cartridge King, Ethiopia is to expand its assembly and manufacturing operations to include ink and ribbon cartridges in the coming months.

The company wishes to a set a new standard with a state of the art facility to assemble new cartridges or to re-manufacture ‘virgin cartridges’ un-tampered by the ‘drill and fill’ operations popular in Ethiopia said Jazir Teja, Managing Director of the company.

Cartridge King has the capacity and the machinery to produce 15,000 toners, 2,000 ribbon cartridges and 5,000 ink cartridges every month he said. The company aims to establish a reputation as reliable brand with the eventual aim of expanding to the regional market.

Rose Chemicals, from Turkey and Swiss companies, CHT-Bazema and Textile Color AG, have been selected for an exclusive arrangement to supply chemicals to the textile industry in Ethiopia with a commitment to set up factories in the next five years.  

The Textile Industry Development Institute and the Ministry of Industry invited 15 international companies to make offers following persistent complaint from the textile sector about challenges associated with chemical imports.

After reviewing five proposals the three companies were selected as exclusive textile chemical suppliers in Ethiopia enjoying duty free privileges. The three companies were selected on criteria that included European quality certification, supply capacity and their commitment to respect the customs bonded warehouse rules of the Ethiopian Revenues and Customs Authority.

Four apparel and textile producers in Ethiopia are to wrap a 10 million US dollar deal with a group of US buyers in the next few weeks according to a senior representative of USAID Compete.

The Ethiopian textile companies involved in the deal are AYKA Addis, Addis Garment, Maa Garment and Kombolcha Textile and Calvin Kline is expected to be one of the US companies involved.

USAID Compete, is a USAID initiative which organizes Origin Africa, a yearly textile and apparel trade show in Africa. The Origin Africa event, which took place in Ethiopia for the first time this year, so 60 exhibitors representing many from the Ethiopian textile sector and about 26 buyers from the US and some from Europe.

Ethiopia was selected to host the “Origin Africa’ textile exhibition because of its conducive investment and trade policy according to Rajeev Arora, Director of the African Cotton and Textile Industries Federation.

The exhibition will be held in Addis Ababa from April 25-28 2012.

Ethiopia should enhance the competitiveness of its textile and garments sector on the international market said Arora.