Tuesday
January18, 2004
Takem ships first batch of livestock to Egypt
By Tamiru Geda
Following the agreement made between Takem Plc, a local company
engaged in the export of livestock and meat products to foreign
markets, and HIEB Group, an Egyptian company, some two months ago, the
first shipment commenced Thursday, January 13.
Around 800 livestock bought from Bahir Dar, a city northern of Addis
Ababa, were brought to the Addis Ababa La Gare Customs Station and
transported to Djibouti using 40 large trucks.
Moges Gebremariam, owner and general manager of Takem Plc, told
Capital that despite some challenges they faced, the job was
accomplished successfully. “We learnt a lot from our first attempt and
hopefully the co-ordination would be more organized in the future,”
said Moges satisfactorily.
The Egyptian company, so far, has exported around 1,500 livestock and
4,000 sheep to Egypt and plans to export more than 35,000 livestock
and 3,000 tons of meat per month as of 1 February 2005. The company
has already signed an agreement worth USD 50 million for the
establishment of a slaughterhouse in Ethiopia designed mainly for
preparing meat and mutton to be exported to Egypt.
The livestock that were recently shipped to Egypt are expected to
arrive before the coming Id Al Adaha, the Holy Muslim holiday that
will be celebrated on Friday, 21 January.
Moges suggested that the involvement of concerned government
authorities such as customs officials, the Ministry of Rural
Development and Agriculture, helped in the success of the mission.
It is reported that requests from foreign companies mainly in the
Middle East such as Jordan, Yemen, and Qatar are piling up. Ethiopia
is believed to be the leading country in Africa and 10th in the world
in terms of livestock export.
HIEB Group is known worldwide for importing large quantities of meat
and live animals from different parts of the world.
