Ethiopia has obtained over 1.1 billion USD from coffee exports in the 11 months of this concluding Ethiopian fiscal year, the Ethiopian Coffee and Tea Authority (ECTA) disclosed.
In an exclusive interview with ENA, Authority Director-General Adugna Debela said that the amount of money earned is almost same as that of last fiscal year despite the relatively less volume of coffee exported.
He attributed the success to the emphasis given to exporting high-quality coffee.
The director-general said the nation managed to export 300,000 tons of coffee last year and secured about 1.4 billion USD.
According to him, about 1 billion USD from about 183,000 tons of coffee export was obtained during the past ten months and in the eleventh month 150 million USD by exporting over 27,000 tons.
“By the end of June (the last month of fiscal year), we hope that the nation will achieve a similar amount of export revenue as that of last year,” he added.
Stating that global challenges were the main reason for exporting less coffee, Adugna stated that the nation has managed to compensate for the volume by increasing the quality of coffee.
Regarding the plan for the next fiscal year, the director-general noted that the emphasis would be on the activities undertaken in improving quality alongside expanding market destinations.
In ensuring the quality of coffee, he added that pre-production and post-production are the two important stages of maintaining quality of coffee.
As an institution, the Ethiopian Coffee and Tea Authority has been working on those two crucial phases of coffee production by prioritizing quality while transporting, storing and processing, among others, it was learned.
Moreover, the director-general stressed that the nation has managed to increase the production of specialty coffee. The share of the specialty coffee in Ethiopia has reached 70 percent.
“We are providing coffee that can withstand the price volatility of global coffee,” Adugna said, adding that “this fiscal year the price of global coffee market has decreased but the price of Ethiopian coffee has increased due to the increase in quality.”
The price of coffee at the global market has fallen by 30 percent due to various reasons, including the war in Ukraine and Russia.
Coffee is critical to Ethiopia’s economy, generating 24 percent of the nation’s export income as USA, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Belgium, and Germany are its major coffee export destinations.
Recall that Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee Arabica and contains nearly a fifth of all coffee farms around the world.
Source: Ethiopian News Agency
