Close partnership has been formed with the Ethiopian Statistical Service to address the absence of well-organized data in the manufacturing industries and to foster the sector’s growth, the Industry Minister said.
Speaking to FBC, Industry Minister Melaku Alebel stated that lack of comprehensive data has been hindering the government’s efforts to promote the manufacturing industries.
The emerging manufacturing industry is seriously impacted by lack of well-organized and systematically filed data and it is becoming difficult to know what kind of industries Ethiopia has and to realize their production capacity. It is also troublesome to identify what kind of infrastructure and input do the industries need.
Systematic data collection is crucial to identify the type of infrastructure, supply and market linkages demand of each industry and to understand the number of jobs that are being created in the facilities, Melaku added.
Ethiopian Textiles and Apparels Producers Association Secretary General Agazi Gebreyesus for his part said that manufacturing industries are working to create direct producer- to- producer linkage and foster production. “However, there are a number of information gaps that need to be bridged along this line.”
Beverage Industries Association Manager Ahenafi Meried said, “Manufacturing industries, for instance, can get foreign currency through National Bank, but the latter doesn’t have full information about them.”
Afar State Trade and Industry Bureau Head Muhammed Humed indicated that the bureau has also been challenged to lead the industry using a knowledge based approach as a result of the information gap. Even, he said, most of the industries are not well known at what level they are operating, what kind of input they need, and their general status due to lack of information.
Amhara State Industry and Investment Bureau Head Idris Abdu also mentioned a similar problem of knowledge and information gap to lead the industry as properly and profitably as possible. As the result of this, it is unable to identify challenges that the manufacturing industries have been encountering and devising possible solutions.
To address such a challenge, the Ministry of Industry inked accord with the Ethiopian Statistics Service and the latter vowed to keep proper records of manufacturing industries and others accordingly.
According to the Minister, such a bold step helps to solve problems of industries and enables them to boost production and productivity via recording full information and the Service will know all aspects of industries upon keeping records.
“Keeping records in an organized manner would be of paramount importance in helping to identify for whom we would provide land and to supervise whether activities are being carried out per plan. Besides, reliable and timely information fosters the manufacturing industry’s general growth,” he remarked.