Chinese Investment Stimulates Ethiopia Leather And Other Manufacturing Industry Potential

Ethiopia is an agricultural and animal husbandry country. Its raw resources are ranked first in Africa, and its leather is of high quality, good handle and close fiber structure. The high-grade leather products of Ethiopia have been well known in the international market.

Due to tight market demand and insufficient supply of raw materials, leather production was greatly affected in 2014.

Ahmad, Minister of industry in Ethiopia, said recently that the manufacturing industry in the country is expanding rapidly, and the production capacity of enterprises is expanding, which leads to the shortage of raw materials.

More than 20 kilometers from the capital of Addisababa, the city of Ethiopia, can reach the city of suroda, where the Sino African leather industry Limited is also faced with a shortage of raw leather supply.

Xu Jianliang, general manager of China Africa leather industry limited, told our reporter that when the supply of raw leather was short, the company could only reduce production or import some semi-finished products from abroad to deal with difficulties.

But he also lamented that the tight supply of raw leather just reflected the two years of Ethiopia.

The rapid expansion of manufacturing industry, his own company is no exception.

The factory, which invested a total of 27 million US dollars, was built in November 2009. At first, it mainly produces top grade glove leather, upper leather and cashmere leather. In April 2014, the new cowhide production line was added.

The plant is jointly funded by Henan Xinxiang Kuroda Akiryo Leather Co., Ltd. and China Africa Development Fund.

The company has the capacity to produce 15 thousand sheepskin per day. There are more than 400 sets of tannery equipment from raw leather to leather.

At present, the company has recruited and trained more than 500 local employees.

Bellert, a human resource manager and legal adviser of the Limited by Share Ltd, said to reporters that the arrival of Chinese enterprises not only brought the hardworking and progressive culture of the Chinese people, but also pferred advanced and practical manufacturing technology to Ethiopia, further promoting the development of Ethiopia manufacturing industry, and created job opportunities for the local people.

The Oriental Industrial Park, located more than 30 kilometers southeast of Addisababa, was also built in 2009.

The Industrial Park invested by Chinese private enterprises is the first one in Ethiopia, and has been listed as a priority national development project in the Ethiopia industrial development plan.

And the role of Ethiopia in economic development has become increasingly prominent.

At present, there are 24 enterprises in the Dongfang Industrial Park, and 15 have been put into production, involving metallurgy, building materials, electrical and mechanical, clothing and so on.

Chinese Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng has said that in the field of manufacturing investment, China and Ethiopia have strong matching in the industrial pfer undertaking, and the cooperation space is broad.

Essex has good conditions for developing labor-intensive industries, such as superior investment environment, higher business convenience, abundant labor resources and considerable resources.

And so on.

China and Ethiopia can work together to build Ethiopia into the main place for China's manufacturing industry to pfer.

It is reported that H&M, the global apparel retailing giant, has already started working with Ethiopia's suppliers.

In addition, many large international companies such as Pittards, the British leather manufacturer, and Turkey textile manufacturer AykaTekstil are interested in setting up factories in Ethiopia.

Gabriel, a scholar at the University of Ethiopia, told reporters that more countries invest in Ethiopia, highlighting Ethiopia's comparative advantage in developing manufacturing.

He believes that in Africa, Ethiopia is the second most populous country after Nigeria. The huge labor force is an important reason why international investment attaches importance to Ethiopia.

In addition, Ethiopia, as one of the least developed countries in the world, enjoys many tariff and quota free policies on African products, such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which is helpful to the export of Ethiopia.

In addition, Ethiopia's political situation has been stable for many years and its economy has been developing at a high speed. The Ethiopian government has implemented the policy of opening to the outside world for many years, and has implemented the reform of economic marketization and privatization. It has attracted a large number of foreign investment through increasing investment preferential policies, lowering investment threshold, expanding investment fields, and implementing preferential tax reduction and exemption.

However, Peter Dmeger, a senior researcher at the Institute of International Studies in South Africa, told our reporter that in developing the manufacturing sector, African countries had cheap labor, but they lacked equipment, capital and experience, and infrastructure facilities such as roads and power supply that were matched with the manufacturing industry.

Lu Fang, a Shanghai man who runs a garment factory in Lesotho, a southern African country, told reporters that although the cost of human labor in Africa is relatively low, the local staff's mastery of technology is low or incomplete, resulting in low production efficiency, which will also increase production costs.

For Ethiopia, Xu Jianliang told reporters that the lack of supporting facilities for the development of the manufacturing industry is also very obvious constraints.

In addition to the power supply instability of Ethiopia will affect production, chemical materials almost all need to be imported into the leather products of Ethiopia. Because Ethiopia is a landlocked country, materials entering Djibouti port from Ethiopia are required for customs clearance and land pportation.

In addition, Ethiopia still has strict foreign exchange control, and the entire financial sector has not been opened to foreign investment, which is a relatively thorny problem for capital repatriation.

Fortunately, at present, Chinese enterprises are also actively contributing to the infrastructure such as Ethiopia, roads and electric power.

One of the most critical projects is from Addisababa to the main railway line of the nearest port state Djibouti. At present, the two railway bureau of China Railway has started construction. This railway will be the main channel for import and export of Ethiopia and even East Africa's hinterland, which will greatly enhance the efficiency of export of Ethiopia manufacturing products.

In 2014, the first expressway from Addisababa to Adama, which was built by the China Communications Group, was also opened to traffic.

In terms of electricity, the largest wind power project in East Africa built by China Hydropower Consulting Group has been put into operation in batches.

In addition, more Chinese funded enterprises are actively participating in or bidding for the Ethiopia power grid renovation project.