Ethiopia pushes plan to become Africa’s manufacturing hub
By Tesfa-Alem Tekle
June 20, 2017 (HAWASSA) – Ethiopia on Tuesday inaugurated what it said is the first specialised, sustainable textile and apparel industrial park in Africa.
At the occasion, Hailemariam said Ethiopia’s vision is to be the leading manufacturing hub in Africa by the year 2025.
“Our goal is to create millions of new jobs in labor-intensive and export-oriented light manufacturing”, he said.
He added “the full operation of the Hawassa industrial park is the most evident and concrete example yet towards achieving our national vision and marks a milestone in our quest to industrialisation”.
The Hawassa world-class eco-industrial park featuring state-of-the-art, environmentally-friendly technology was built by Chinese Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) at a cost of about $ 322 million.
Covering an area of 1.3 million square meters, of which 300, 000-meter square is factory shed build up area, the park has so far attracted 18 leading textile and garment companies from across the world including from America, China and India.
Also, eight domestic investors have been meticulously selected and necessary preparations are finalised to facilitate their investment inside the park.
The park, built in record time nine months implements a Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) that enables to recycle 90 %of sewerage disposal water and fulfils international standards.
The plant uses the latest technology and has the capacity for treating and recycling 11 million litres of effluent every day.
Ethiopia says its rapid economic growth can only be sustained through the realization of a structural economic transformation.
The country has been registering a strong and steady economic growth for more than a decade now, with an average GDP growth rate of 11%.
The most recent report from both the World Bank (Global Economic Prospect, 2017) and IMF (World Economic Outlook 2017) forecast that the horn of Africa’s nation will be one of the fastest growing economies in the world and a star performer in the African continent in 2017.
Furthermore, Ethiopia has become one of the largest recipients of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the continent.
According to UNCTAD’s 2017 investment report, Ethiopia is now the second largest recipient of FDI in textile and apparel next to Vitnam.
The Ethiopian Industrial Parks Development Corporation (IPDC) Board Chairperson Dr Arkebe Oqubay told journalists that development of world-class, specialised, sustainable, vertically integrated, export -driven and competitive industrial parks is the central drive toward realising vision 2025.
Arkebe, who is also Special Advisor to the Prime Minister, said currently there are some 10,000 employees in the Hawassa Park but at full capacity, the park will hire around 60,000 employees.
He added some companies in the park have already started to export and when the park starts production at full capacity, Ethiopia will earn around one billion USD every year from Hawassa Park alone.
Arkebe said the park could be considered as a model for other parks being built in other East African countries.
Including those two parks which recently operationalized, Ethiopia is currently building a total of 15 industrial parks across the country as part of its goal to emerge as continent’s manufacturing hub.
Sudan Tribune has reliably learned that four more industrial parks namely Mekelle, kombelcha, Adama and Dire Dawa parks will be inaugurated till September.
(ST)