2merkato

The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa announced that it is to implement a pilot project on Virtual Trade Facilitation System in the Djibouti Corridor of Ethiopia.

The project is expected to enhance regional competitiveness, to expand trade, exchange information and coordinate activities according to Ahmed Shide, State Minister for Finance and Economic Development speaking at COMMESA Trade Facilitation Workshop held in Addis Ababa.

The system facilitates the tracking of cargo, control of the movement of goods and monitor and to ensure the efficiency, time management, cost effectiveness and transparency reducing time and cost for cross border and local transport as well as transit traffic along the corridor he added.

A delegation of business and government representatives from the Czech Republic and a member of the International Chamber of Commerce held discussions with the Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce and Sectoral Associations on bilateral trade and investment opportunities in Ethiopia.

The economic policies adopted by the governments of the two countries in the last 20 years have served to promote direct trade between the business communities in the two countries said Gebrehiwot Gebreegzihber member of the ECCSA board of Directors.

As consequence of such policies the trade between the two countries has grown from just 312 thousand US dollars in 2004 to more than 12 million US dollars this year he said.

Ukraine’s largest private power and coal producer DTEK is to supply coal to Ethiopia this year. The company will deliver coal to Ethiopia to be used in cement production as part of its bid to increase its presence in forign markets.

The export potential to African markets is estimated at least 300, 000 tons of anthracite coal according to Andrev Favorov, Commercial Director with DTEK in a statement.

There is significant demand for high quality anthracite coal on the African continent he noted.

Revenue from flower exports grew to 212.5 million US dollars in Ethiopia in the last financial year. The revenue is fourteen percent higher than the money earned in the previous fiscal year because flower exports has grown to 2.1 billion stems from 1.8 billion stems.

The increase in revenue is attributed to the implementation of newly enacted control mechanisms.

The new mechanisms put in place eliminated the previous system whereby custom officials just counted the stems in selected boxes to estimate exports allowing a loophole for exporters to retain some retain some revenue outside of the country.