Ethiopians drying their coffee |
Ethiopia is Africa's biggest coffee producer with
output of about 450,000 tonnes for both the 2013/14 and 2014/15 seasons. The
country is planning to double its commodity exchange its’ trades by next year
after introducing an electronic platform to replace its system of shouting and
gesturing orders, the firm's chief executive said.
Launched in 2008, the exchange (ECX) trades seven
commodities, including coffee and sesame, two of the Horn of Africa country's
top exports, using an "open outcry" system.
In an interview with Reuters, ECX's Chief
Executive Ermias
Eshetu, "The whole
point of having this capacity is to have the bandwidth to be able to trade
multiple commodities with no limits," Ermias said.
"We are
going to go after sugar, teff, chickpeas, and whatever the market needs. We
will be hoping to double year to year the number of commodities we are trading,"
he said.
The exchange has so far focused on the country's
main cash crops.
In a bid to boost storage facilities, ECX
announced on Thursday that a new government enterprise would handle its
warehouse operations, whose dearth was an obstacle to expansion.
The exchange traded 590,000 tonnes of commodities
in the 2014/2015 year that ended on June 30, according to company figures. It
expects an annual growth of 15 percent each year for the next five years.
ECX also plans to introduce futures and forward
trading next year, Ermias told Reuters, in a country where farmers are often
accused of hoarding supplies in anticipation of price rises.
Ethiopia prides itself on being the birthplace of
coffee. The livelihoods of more 15 million people depend on its production,
mostly in small holder farms in the misty forested highlands in the country's
west and southwest.
Ethiopia exported nearly 184,000 tonnes of coffee
during the 2014/15 fiscal year, according to trade ministry officials, down
from the 190,000 exported the previous period.
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