Based in the town of Mojo, 65 km outside of Addis Ababa, ‘Holland Car’ is the brainchild of Tadesse Tessema, who lived in the Netherlands for 27 years but decided he could start a successful business in his homeland.

Ethiopia’s known as a mass producer of such commodities as coffee and leather, but one ambitious Ethiopian is introducing a new idea to the country. Returning after nearly 30 years abroad, Tadesse Tessema has opened Ethiopia’s first vehicle assembly plant – to the surprise of many Ethiopians.

Based in the town of Mojo, 65 kilometres outside of Addis Ababa, ‘Holland Car’ is the brainchild of Tadesse Tessema. Tesseme lived in the Netherlands for the last 27 years and exported cars to Ethiopia. But he decided that if he returned to his homeland he could start a successful business and help create employment. More than $2.5 million USD has been invested in this car assembly plant.

The Dutch Government invested $650,000 USD under its ‘Poverty Reduction Plan’. As part of the deal, the Dutch Government requested the company should be a joint venture between Dutch and Ethiopian companies.

The car is partially assembled in China and sent to Ethiopia’s neighbour Djbouti. It’s then transported 1,000 kilometres by road to this factory south west of the Ethiopian capital where it arrives as a skeleton.

Tadesse team of 75 staff assembles the vehicles. More than 30% of the mechanics are women.

Tadesse named the new car, whose design was based on a Fiat 131, ‘DOCC’ – after the Dutch Overseas Car Company. The 1.6 litre five gear DOCC sells for around $13,000 US Dollars new and comes with a one year warranty and in 8 colours: silver, grey and black being the most popular.

25 cars sold in last three months

In the last three months Tadesse has sold 25 cars and 75 in total since becoming fully operational in November 2006. He plans to build 500 vehicles between now and December and in the future aims to have 2,000 built per year (6 per day).

Tadesse hopes that his enterprise will help to change the image of Ethiopia as an impoverished country. While he tries to improve his country’s image – Tadesse’s also planning to improve the environment and in the future will convert the cars to use the more environmentally-friendly LPG – liquefied petroleum gas.

If Tadesse can find enthusiastic customers, he’ll eventually be able to expand into pick-up trucks, 4 Wheel Drives and light trucks as he says his country needs be less dependent on foreign vehicles. He’s hoping that within a short space of time his cars will be speeding off the assembly line.