Ministry rolls out Import Substitution Products Strategy

Addis Ababa, October 30, 2023 (FBC) – The Ministry of Industry of Ethiopia (MoI) has prepared Import Substitution Industrialization Strategy in view of boosting domestic products and to retain foreign currency in the country, Industry Minister, Mr. Melaku Alebel said.

The Minister disclosed that while addressing the Ministry’s consultation forum with federal and regional stakeholders, manufacturing industry owners and private sector representatives on the Import Substitution Products Strategy document.

In his remarks, Mr. Melaku mentioned that the strategy aims to replace 96 kinds of import products with domestic products.

Ethiopia’s import and export trade is still unsymmetrical for certain factors, the Industry Minister reckoned. “Ethiopia spends 18 billion US dollars to import various goods and products, but the amount of export trade is limited to only 4 – 5 billion US dollars.”

In that regard, the Import Substitution Strategy document has been prepared to bridge this gap and to balance the import-export trade, he pointed out. The strategy was prepared based on the outcomes of a study carried out in the past 12 months that also involved the sector’s stakeholders, he added.

The Minister mentioned that the strategy will enable to fully replace 96 import products with domestic products through the country’s raw materials, human resources and technology at hand.

As the production capacity grows in conformance with the import substitution strategy, works will be carried out to increase the types of products that can be substituted with domkestic products, according to Melaku.

In the last three months, 350 million US dollars worth of domestic products have been manufactured in Ethiopia, the Minister added.