MOSCOW (IPS) – When the 13th Addis Ababa International Trade Fair officially opens tomorrow, the Russian trade delegation hopes to make its presence felt with participating industrial companies and business enterprises.
About 50 Russian industry and trade representatives are attending the trade fair, which ends on Mar 3, where they will display their products.
They are also aiming to hold fresh business talks and review existing relations with Ethiopian counterparts that could further boost trade and economic cooperation, a senior diplomat at Ethiopia’s embassy in Moscow, Amha Hailegeorgis [a cadre of Ethiopia’s tribalist regime], told IPS.
The delegation is due to first meet with Ethiopia’s trade and industry minister, Girma Biru, for discussions with Ethiopian investors who are particularly interested in exporting various traditional goods such as leather products, coffee and floriculture.
[Most of these companies are owned by the ruling Tigrean People Liberation Front (Woyanne).]
The Russian business representatives from large companies will brief the gathering on potential opportunities for trade and investment in Russia.
Hailegeorgis believes that Ethiopia, with an annual average growth rate of about 11 percent over the past four years and allowances for preferential market access, holds advantages to prospective foreign businesspeople.
The two countries have had long-standing ties in the spheres of culture, economy and politics. Trade ties between the two countries have steadily been improving since the official launching of their joint economic and trade commission in November 1999.
But there’s a lot of room for more growth. Ethiopia exported goods were worth a mere seven million dollars to Russia in 2006 while imported goods were valued at 72 million dollars that year.
The imports and exports baskets are typical for an African state. Ethiopia’s main exports to Russia were flowers, coffee and oil seeds while imports from Russia included chemicals, fertiliser and machinery. [And weapons to terrorize the people of Ethiopia and Horn of Africa.]
Russian investors are interested in the sectors of agriculture, industry, mining, energy and construction as well as telecommunications.
Russia’s deputy foreign minister Alexander Saltanov has reiterated that despite the global recession and other negative trends, work on strengthening the traditionally friendly relations with African continent has remained one of the important components of Russian foreign policy.
He added that Russia is interested in developing multi-sided cooperation with African countries that are considered as promising partners.
Despite the unfavorable tendencies linked to the global economic and financial crisis, purposeful work was conducted to reinvigorate economic and trade cooperation with some African countries whose current level do not yet match their considerable potential, Saltanov explained.
He said that ‘‘great significance was attached to raising the effectiveness of the activities of bilateral intergovernmental commissions so as to promote direct economic ties, and especially in the small and medium-sized business.’’
Saltanov indicated that assistance to the expansion of Russian business is a major priority.
Russia will continue providing the necessary politico-diplomatic follow-up for the African activities of such leading Russian companies as Alrosa, Gazprom, Lukoil, Rusal, Renova, Gammakhim, Technopromexport and VEB and VTB banks, which are engaged in large-scale investment projects on the continent.
‘‘Positive dynamics are evident in the development of Russian-African cooperation in the minerals and raw materials, infrastructure, energy and other spheres. This has helped to create conditions in the region for the successful tackling of the socio-economic problems facing it,’’ he argued.
Among Russia’s principal partners are Angola, Guinea, Libya, Namibia, Nigeria, Ethiopia and South Africa.
Gashaw Abate, a senior manager at the Addis Ababa Chamber of Commerce, said that the basic aim of the trade exhibition is to bring different business actors to one venue to exchange business information. Business deals could result from this.
Abate told IPS in an interview that, ‘‘at this moment we are eager to see the Russian delegation because we understand that their arrival will further strengthen Ethiopian-Russian relations and important results could follow. As is well known, the Ethiopian-Russian relationship is one of the oldest and closest in African history’’.
But, what is unique this time, Abate explained further, is the fact that many Russian business organisations will come to Ethiopia to participate in the trade fair to showcase what the Russian federation could provide the world at large and the Ethiopian market, more specifically.
About 17 business companies will be hosted in a single booth exhibiting their respective goods and services. Another five Russian companies will present papers on their respective business operations, he added.
Addis Ababa – Ethiopia launches activities to make Africa’s first mosque -Al Nejashi Mosque – as a tourist destination and a world heritage site by UNESCO in the coming few years. The Ethiopian Ministry of Culture and Tourism said that it is undertaking various activities to make the mosque and the city of King Ahmed Nejashi a tourist destination, which is located in the Tigray regional state, some 900 km north of Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia. “Activities are also underway to register the mosque as a world heritage site by UNESCO,” said the Ethiopian State Minister for Culture and Tourism Mahamuda Ahimed Gaas.
He said that the design works for the construction of a center is underway in the area to make it a tourist destination. The center to be constructed in the town involves 15 projects including a modern hotel and an Islamic university, as well as a research center, the African Press Agency report reported quoting Ethiopian radio. The center has already received 110,000 square meters of land to build the research and other facilities. The mosque is named after Ethiopia King Ahmed Nejashi who welcomed Muslim refugees some 1,400 years ago. The mosque is considered a symbol of religious co-existence in Ethiopia. That action of the king enabled the Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him) to substantiate that Ethiopia was a country of brotherhood and sympathy.
Islam in Ethiopia date back to the year 615 AD when the first Muslims, among them Prophet Mohammad’s wife came to Ethiopia as refugees and settled in Negash, a small village located 60 km east of Mekele, the capital of Tigray Region. The Quraysh sent emissaries to bring them back to Arabia, but the King of Ethiopia refused their demands. The Prophet himself instructed his followers who came to Ethiopia, to respect and protect Ethiopia as well as live in peace with Ethiopian Christians.
The Negash or Nejashi Mosque is as old as the faith of Islam in Ethiopia. It is the first mosque in Africa. The mosque was built in the 7th century AD and is considered by many as one of the most sacred places of Islamic worship and rightly dubbed by some as “The second Makkah”. Negash has been a place of great historical and religious significance in a sense that it is a symbol of peaceful coexistence between the Muslim and Christian religions. Even though Negash is considered as one of the important places in Ethiopia, there are also other important Muslim places like the Sof Omar Caves and the fourth most important city for Islam Harar with it’s 90 mosques.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Most of the exporting is being done by companies that are owned by the Meles crime family, including his wife Azeb Mesfin. The money stays in the U.S. and Ethiopia gets no benefit.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (Reuters) – Ethiopian tax-free exports to the United States more than doubled to $18 million last year from $8.9 million in 2007, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) said on Wednesday.
“Ethiopia is one of the few African countries to show such steady, marked increase under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA),” the agency said in a statement.
The textile and garments sector accounted for the most exports, increasing to $9.3 million from $4.5 million in 2007. Other sectors that benefitted under AGOA included agricultural products, minerals and metals, the USAID statement said.
It said total Ethiopian exports to the United States rose 172 percent to $152 million last year from $86 million in 2007.
Many sub-Saharan African countries are eligible under AGOA to export goods to the United States without paying duties. Congress approved the programme in May 2000 in a bid to spur economic growth in one of the world’s poorest regions.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The stupid regime in Ethiopia yesterday asked for $400 million in emergency food aid, and yet it cannot even get delivery of food aid caught up in the Djibouti port.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (PANA) – Ethiopian authorities said Tuesday efforts were underway to transport more than 60,000 metric tonnes of food aid caught up for months in the Port of Djibouti following congestion at the facility. State Minister for Agriculture and Food Security Mitiku Kassa said the government had made arrangements to free at least 3,000 metric tonnes of food aid, delaye d at the Port of Djibouti, further inland.
Ethiopia has no port and the government has to arrange for its imports to move further inland, using heavy trucks.
The delay in having the food aid delivered inland saw government cancel the food aid distribution for January.
However, Kassa said the country did not face any emergency food aid distribution in January and there was no need for urgent distribution.
“We had to move sufficient number of trucks to Djibouti to ferry the food to the central warehouses inland,” the minister said after unveiling Ethiopia’s nation a l appeal for food aid assistance for 2009.
Ethiopia uses the Port of Djibouti for its imports but the port lacks sufficient storage capacity, often leading to congestion.
“There is congestion in Djibouti. We are working to avoid this. This has been du e to the lack of warehouses. We have discussed with the Ethiopian Embassy in Dji b outi and the port officials. The issue now is about transport and lack of wareho u ses,” the minister told journalists.
Ethiopia is facing acute famine this year, which could affect up to 4.9 million people unless well-wishers provide enough funds to enable the country buy food a i d.
The country requires some 591,000 metric tonnes of relief food.
Efforts to have the 60,000 metric tonnes of food still locked up in Djibouti are , however, progressing.
“There are 3,000 metric tonnes of food crossing into Ethiopia daily,” the minist er disclosed.
The government says it has been forced to use some of the cereals in its national grain reserves on loan basis to provide assistance to those in dire need of food.
However, the amount of food already utilized from the national food reserves mus t be returned when the food aid arrives in the country.
Ethiopia keeps between 400,000 to 500,000 metric tonnes of food aid for emergencies.
The government also says the national food reserves have recently improved by so me 170,000 metric tonnes.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (PANA) – Ethiopia, battered by the effects of climate change and exceeding national hunger, launched an appeal on Tuesday for some 4.9 million people on the verge of starvation. State Minister for Agriculture Mitiku Kassa said the government requires emergency cash injections to plug a food gap while sustaining the livelihoods of an additional 7.57 million people on state-run food distribution
The appeal for US$ 454 million will help feed some 4.9 million people across the country, facing renewed threats from famine this year after a series of failed rains and poor harvests across the country.
The money is urgently required to finance the acquisition of cereals, edible oils, foods and non-food items and offering medical help to those in need, the minister said.
The authorities need some 591,000 metric tonnes of food aid.
The humanitarian appeal is meant to help save those facing acute starvation this year while a certain number of the food dependants, numbering about 7.57 million are also receiving funds from the government to meet food needs rise.
The government says some 1.5 million people, who had been reliant on state-run food programs were excluded from this year’s food distribution as a result of improved crop yields in western Ethiopia, where food production increased.
However, those on permanent government-operated food distribution appeared to have surged from 5 million in 2005 to 7.5 million in 2008.
The government says some 35,000 people, however, graduated from this food dependency.
“The only sustainable solution to reduce the emergency dependence is to increase agricultural food production,” the state minister in charge of disaster management and food security said.
The western part of the country produces the food that serves the urban population, including the capital, Addis Ababa.
The highest number of those in urgent need of food aid is in the Somali regional state, east of Ethiopia, where the number of those in need of urgent food aid has been computed at 1.55 million, followed by the Amhara state in the North.
Somali region, mostly inhabited by the pastoralists, has missed good rains for the past three years, leading to acute losses of animals and leaving most animals in poor physical condition, the minister said.
“The food aid distribution in the Somali region was most challenging, but now, we have improved the rate of distribution and 91 per cent of the food is now reaching the recipients,” Kassa told journalists at a news conference here.
The Koka Lake I know has turned green thanks to the chemicals damped into the lake. Fertilizers, Nitrogen, Potassium and Phosphorus heavily used to grow commercial flowers and the untreated water from factories surrounding Addis Ababa are the main causes. The less than thirty minutes video on Al Jazeera, “People and Power and Green Lake,” aired on Feb 21 is now posted on EthiopianReview.com and is a must see, what I call another terror by regime of Tigray People Liberation Front ({www:Woyanne}) in Ethiopia — an environmental terror that feeds the algae while killing our people.
The carcinogen that is now contaminating Lake Koka is killing children. That was not the case with the Koka I know more than twenty years ago. Al Jazeera billed the program as a cost of the heavy growth of Addis Ababa and its surroundings and avoid to blame the government that ownes most of the these polluting industries and flower farms.
Except one European owner of the flower farm around Lake Ziway, far from the Green Lake of Koka, no owner comes in public to be interviewed. The Ethiopian tyrant, while was addressing the Youth in Addis Ababa few weeks ago, there was one question of water related hazard for which he blames the hide industry and that was a one minute question and answer and so much for the concern of the government.
Ethiopia has no government that is accountable for the health and the safety of its citizens and that is the bottom line. Human lives are secondary and Al Jazeera, if it zoomed its lenses, could have shown children, young and elderly with no home begging in the surrounding government owned high rises.
The sad thing is foreign partners of this regime do also miss the Green Lake. Haven’t they seen or took pictures on their cell phone on their weekend driving to Sodere? Polluted rivers in Europe and USA are now back to life supporting fish and become a recreational area after years of toxic damping and poor Ethiopia is encouraged to destroy its water resources by pumping loans for a regime that is making fast money at the expense of poor Ethiopian farmers ? Why are we not learning from other countries or we have to first grow by destroying our ecosystem and then start cleaning the mess ?
In a country where there is not any law that protects the public, it might be considered a luxury to look for environmental law. However, this is a criminal case where the harm is done to our people purposely and the Meles regime officials have to be held accountable.
