Ethiopian Review

Ethiopian meat exporters have resumed sending their products to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia early May following the lifting of the temporary ban that the kingdom had put on Ethiopian meat products since March, sources disclosed.

The news of the end of the suspension reached the meat exporters after the Embassy of the Kingdom in Addis Abeba communicated it to Ethiopian authorities; the Embassy sent a letter, which states that the suspension has been lifted, to the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) on May 6, 2009.

The exporting of the meat restarted on May 12, 2009, after exporters received copies of the letter from the Kingdom’s Embassy, which states that their business can continue as usual.

“Yes, we have received the letter from MoFA that confirms the permission to export meat to Saudi,” Tamrat Ejigu, secretary general of the Ethiopian Meat Producers, Exporters Association (EMPEA), told Fortune.

When the ban was effected on March 4, 2009, the Kingdom’s Embassy had said, in a written response to Fortune’s queries, that imports would only be permitted after a committee came to Ethiopia and re-inspected the abattoirs to ensure that all shortcomings are fixed.

Though Saudi was expected to send a committee before the meat imports from Ethiopia were permitted, intensive lobbying by officials at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MoARD) and MoFA has brought things to an end, according to sources.

MoARD has been trying to fix the problems cited by Saudi’s inspection committee, and every owner of the abattoirs inspected have made the requested changes at their own expense, the sources said.

But sources from the Saudi Embassy told Fortune that the letter sent from the Kingdom indicates that it has only allowed the import of chilled beef from Ethiopia. Nevertheless, beef has never been exported to the kingdom for the last more than a decade, according to exporters.

Girma Temesgen, director general of Economic and Business Affairs Directorate with MoFA, confirmed that the letter discloses that only the ban on chilled beef has been lifted.

Though apparently appreciative of the latest move by Saudi, MoFA is involved in intensive dialogue with the Kingdom’s Embassy in Ethiopia and Ethiopian Embassy in Riyadh to convince the Gulf state to open it doors for other meat exports from Ethiopia.

Surprisingly, however, though the letter indicates that the Middle Eastern country, which depends on imports for most of its consumption, allows only chilled beef from Ethiopia, meat exporters here have been sending mutton and goat-meat to the Kingdom over the last 15 days, industry actors told Fortune.

It is within these contradicting contexts that MoFA is trying to sort out whether the situation is because of typographical error or miscommunication, according to sources.

Meat exporters in Ethiopia want government authorities to work on the sustainability of their overseas trade. Some of the exporters also believe that they are suffering for what other exporters did.

“We are happy now. But there must be some government office to check the standard and quality in all abattoirs, and to take action on those who do not conform to standards,” a general manager of one of the exporting companies, told Fortune. “When the problem is detected in one abattoir, we all will be suspended,” he said.

According to sources from MoFA, a group of Saudi business delegates will pay a visit to Ethiopia on May 31, 2009, and the meat export issue is expected to be one of their points of discussion.

Ethiopia’s meat export to Saudi Arabia had been suspended since March 6, 2009. For the last more than two months, not a single livestock or kilo of meat have been exported to the one of the major buyers of the meat products in the world.

Ethiopia earned over 48.2 million dollars in the first half of the current fiscal year from livestock and meat exports.

Years back, Ethiopia’s livestock and meat exports to the Kingdom had been banned because of the spread of Rift Valley Fever (RVF) in the supplier’s land; the ban was lifted on August 23, 2003.

- By ABIY WENDIFRAW | Addis Fortune