These camels no doubt were stolen from Ogaden and Afar regions.
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Ethiopia to export 20,000 camels to Egypt
(ENA) SAAFI Trading and Agro Industry PLC [a well-known Woyanne affiliated company], Ethiopia’s second largest live animal exporting company, envisages to export 20,000 camels valued at six million USD abroad this year. It also called the government to strengthen control on boarder livestock contraband trade, which it said, disabling exporter’s competitive capacity in the global market.
In an exclusive interview with ENA on Saturday, Company General Manger Mohammed Mohamud said his company would export the stated number of camels to Egypt.
Mohammed said both the quality and quality of camels the company exports and the amount of export revenue the country obtains from the organization’s export has been growing steadily.
He said the country is expected to earn about three million USD additional revenue from the company’s camel export this year that is likely to show a 50 percent growth when compared to that of the amount it secures last year.
The GM said the company, a three-time award winner for its outstanding export performance, exports camels valued at 2.5-3 million USD to Egypt annually on average.
Concerning the support of the government provides to the sector, Mohammed pointed out that the government has been giving the necessary support and incentives to exporters engaged in the sector, which he described as “motivating”.
Referring to illegal trade, Mohammed pointed out that contraband trade in livestock animal, which he said has been growing from time to time, is dwarfing local exporters capacity on the one hand while preventing the nation to get the expected hard currency from the sector.
He further said contraband traders from neighboring countries have been smuggling cattle and camels out of the country that has resulted in the increase of prices locally at an alarming rate while reducing legal exporter’s market competitiveness globally.
“Some times contraband traders from neighboring countries are more powerful than us (legal local exporters) in local market forcing us to seem an onlookers rather than buyers”, Mohammed indicated.
The GM urged the government to tighten its control mechanisms against boarder domestic animal contraband trade in order to boost the capacity of local exporters thereby enable the nation to enjoy the benefits it deserves.
He also said lack of plots of land that are required to keep cattle temporarily or until they are exported and shortage of animal fodder are some of the other problems that have to be addressed.
The company also received a bronze medal from Prime Minister Vampire Meles Zenawi this year for being the second biggest live animal exporting company in terms of generating hard currency for the nation.
