Ethiopian textile industries yet to gain global scale albeit development going on

Ethiopia as a land of immense resources, growth and investment opportunity. It grows some of the world’s finest cotton and has a rich textile spinning and weaving history. Moreover, the government has put several incentives in place, a priority given towards developing the textile and clothing industry across the value chain, a viable business environment and duty free market access to US and EU, yet its importance on a global scale remains inconsequential.

According to Ethiopian Textile industries Development Institute (ETIDI) the textile industry that comprises of 115 textile factories and 40,000 workers, was only able to earn 52percent of the 111 million dollars that it was supposed to achieve in the first half of the year against the target for the year set at 317 million dollars despite of all the developments going on.

Currently, there are six other expansion projects ongoing in the textile industry. Ten new additional factories with a combined production capacity of 100tns a day are also expected to start production during this fiscal year. An additional three new projects are expected to start production during the 2014/15 fiscal year.

Around 99 million dollars worth of textile products was exported in the last fiscal year. This number is likely to reach one billion dollars by the end of the Growth & Transformation Plan (GTP) period.

The country has great potential but the reason of not achieving the target is the production capacity of existing factories being underutilized, which is a big problem. At present only 60 percent of the production capacity is being utilized.

However, Ethiopia has set ambitious targets to expand rapidly by 2015. The textile and clothing sector is considered as the key priority sector of the Governments Industrial Development Strategy as part of the Growth and Transformation Plan. With a vision to become a world – class institute by 2024, TIDI’s mission (The Textile Industry Development Institute of Ethiopia) is to make possible the Ethiopian textile industry to compete globally by providing perpetual investment promotion, consultancy, training, research, laboratory and marketing support and services.