Concerted Efforts Needed to Improve Ethiopian Logistics Service: Stakeholders

Addis Ababa June 06/2018 A concerted effort of all stakeholders is needed to improve the efficient and effective service delivery of the Ethiopian logistics sector, stakeholders of the industry said. In an exclusive interview with ENA, Ethiopian Maritime Affairs Authority Director-General Mekonnen Abera said all stakeholders that are involved in the logistics system need to be aware of the logistics system of Ethiopia with the basic parameters time, cost and complexity of logistics. Reliability and complexity of logistics system, time and cost are the basic parameters of logistics; Mekonnen said, and said “in this regard our logistics system is lagging behind other similar countries.” According to him, the average import lead time of container from Shanghai is about 4 months and costs 4-5 thousand USD/TEU including waiting time at port of loading and destination port, sea passage, transit time and waiting at distribution centers.  “The dwelt time of our cargo, be it at the Djibouti port or Mojo dry port is more than 40 days and this is really unacceptable standard. So we need to change it to acceptable results by involving all stakeholders,” the Director-General pointed out. He added that collaboratively managing the flow of information and transaction as well as modernizing the logistics system will definitely bring significant impact. “With regard to that, we need to check the ongoing system on customs, dry port, and transport and once we identify that we need to exert our combined efforts towards the intervention that can bring impactful results,” the Director-General emphasized. CEO of the multi modal transportation and logistics service provider, Panafric Global, Elizabeth Getahun said “there is this difficult situation that no one takes the responsibility and commitment to decisively resolve even for the simplest mistake in the industry.” She added that lack of integration and working under a single umbrella of the entire sector is the major problem that is pulling the logistics industry of Ethiopia back instead of moving forward. “As long as I know, there was no time that the logistics has received any support and considered as one vital economic sector, whenever many other sectors have. Consequently, private freight forwarders working sole handedly” Elsabeth said. The CEO noted that due attention should be given for the logistics industry for it will bring significantly large amount of foreign currency if well organized and managed. “We have developed many industrial parks across the country and if we really want to see viable results of them, I believe that we need to support and protect the logistics sector.”  Investment Commissioner, Dr. Belachew Mekuria told ENA that the commission is organizing logistics conference, which will have significant impact in bringing multiple inputs towards improving the industry. “This is going to be a forum where we will be drawing action points for further coalition intervention,” he pointed out. The conference will bring together some of the leading global players in the logistics industry and brands that have operations in Ethiopia, the Commissioner said. According to him, the conference will articulate the most critical bottlenecks that have uptake the logistics of the country particularly, in lead time and cost. “Once completed, we believe that it will bring a huge improvement in what we do both in terms of the industry and as enabler for other industries,” Belachew elaborated. Ethiopia’s logistics performance which was ranked 104 of 160 countries in 2014 has fallen down to 126 in 2016.