Nation Eyes to Earn Over 200 Million USD from Textile, Garment

Addis Ababa August 22/2018 Ethiopia has eyed to earn 240 million US dollars from textile export in the current fiscal year. Textile and garment sector is considered as one of the key industrial sectors, prioritized by the government as a source of foreign currency earnings to offset current shortage in hard currency. Speaking at the discussion organized to assess the national performance of the textile and garment industry, State Minister of Industry, Bogale Feleke said the sector is going receive more priority in foreign currency earnings compared to other sectors. He added that agreement have been signed with the National Bank and Development Bank of Ethiopia on ways of efficiently releasing the foreign currency for transactions in textile and apparel sector in the current fiscal year. During the preceding Ethiopian fiscal year, about 110 million US dollars was secured from the export of textile sector, meeting only 46 percent of the plan for the year. Bogale  pointed out that the  drawbacks in lower export earnings is attributed to lower exports, shortage of cotton , lack of trained manpower,  instability in some parts of the country were the major challenges the sector has faced. Speaking on shortage of cotton as a row material, the government has prepared National Cotton Development Strategy to fix the setback effectively, according to the minister. This 15-year strategy was launched to significantly boost local cotton production and to put Ethiopia in a position of the top cotton producer from Africa, it was indicated. Ethiopia is going to harvest huge amount of cotton for export and to satisfy the demand from local textile industries. Despite the fact that textile industry is generating small amount of foreign exchange, maximum efforts is being undertaken to enhance foreign currency earnings from the sector,  Silesh Lema, Director General of Textile Industry Development Institute told ENA. Stating as lack of proper market linkage with reliable buyers, the institute is striving in expanding market opportunities and to obtain potential buyers in the global market, he added.