Ethiopia has earned a total of $1.1 billion from export of commodities during the first four months of the current budget year started July 8, 2020.
The information from the Ministry of Trade and Industry shows that, though the plan of the government for the four months period was to generate $1.7 billion from export of commodities, it has managed to secure $1.1 billion. Of the total earning, around $213 million was secured from the fourth month (October) export.
Coffee, which represents about one fourth of the total export of, flower, oil seeds, cereals, and spices are among the major export commodities of Ethiopia. In addition mineral such as gold, gemstones such as opal have also been generating hard currency for the country.
Ethiopia’s annual earnings of Ethiopia from export of commodities has been dwindling for the past several years at times dropping to $around $2.9 billion. Meanwhile, in the last few years, it has been showing slight improvement growing to around $3.1 billion on average per year. On the contrary, Ethiopia’s hard currency spending on import commodities has been increasing to around $16 billion on average per year.