MADE IN ETHIOPIA: ETHIOPIAN FASHION
Casual shoes manufactured at Anbessa Shoe Factory are being sold with international brands in Europe and the America.
Sintayehu Bekele
footwear manufacturers in Ethiopia with a cumulative capacity of producing 12 million pairs of shoes a year. The local market is dominated by the more than 90 small and micro enterprises that cover 90 percent of the local market. The bigger manufacturers like Anbessa and Sheba also have outlets in different parts of the country. Anbessa has 31 outlets out of which 19 are in the regional towns and Sheba has 19 outlets. “The local market is more beneficial compared to the export in terms of prices but the need for the foreign currency and the incentives that we get by exporting our products are what drive our export orientation”, Yohannes explained. Currently, the country’s shoe manufacturing has been joined by the bigger international brands like Huajian of China, George Shoe of
Taiwan and Brown of US joining Britsh firm Pittards. Among the other local companies that are getting traction in the export market is Bermero Shoes which started manufacturing as a small and micro enterprise. Currently their products go to Europe and America. The pushing factor for the growing export market for Ethiopian footwear, besides the quality of the leather that is found from the highlands of the country, are the opportunities like the Africa Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) that enables African countries to export to the US and Everything But Arms (EBA) with the European Union. Between 2011 and 2012, Ethiopian shoe exports through the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) increased more than tenfold--from US $630,000 to nearly
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US $7 million. The other market opportunities for the export of Ethiopian footwear are Ethiopia’s membership in regional trade grouping – The Common Market for Eastern & Southern Africa/COMESA/ - a region inhabited by more than 420 million people. Ethiopia also enjoys Duty Free and Quota Free (DFQF) and ‘zero Tariff ’ with China and DFQF with India. By the end of the 2012/13 fiscal year, the total export of shoes from the country was 3.08 million pairs of shoes generating 30.5 million dollars in revenues up from the 6.3 million dollars gained through the export of 537,317 pairs four years back. Currently, the footwear manufacturing had created employment opportunities for 7,400 people