published on July 24, 2017
Indian delegation to visit soon
Coimbatore, July 24: The Ethiopian government is on a mission to get entrepreneurs in the textile hubs of Coimbatore, Tirupur, Erode and Dindigul to establish their presence in that country’s industrial parks.
A delegation led by Ethiopian Industry Minister Bogale Feleke Temesgen met textile industrialists at the Southern India Mills Association here, and impressed upon them the advantages of setting up a facility in his country.
Industrial parks
“Our government envisions making the country a leading manufacturing hub by 2025. To get there, we have been focussing on industrial park development and expansion, offering fiscal incentives such as income tax and customs duty exemption and providing ease of access to the parks at promotional rates. Four of the 13 proposed industrial parks is complete and ready for occupation,” he said.
“Hawassa Industrial Park, for instance, is specifically for the textile and apparel sector, and large Indian companies such as Raymond, Arvind and Kanoria Textiles have established their presence there . The industrialisation process has just started; there are around 175 ginning and spinning units,” he added.
Highlighting the advantages in terms of availability of raw material, labour and power, he said: “Our annual production of cotton is 100,000 tonnes. But the potential to grow is enormous; as close to 3 million hectares is available for cultivation of the white fibre. Only 20 per cent of the cotton growing area is now covered.
“We need forward linkage to cultivate cotton; we are here to convince manufacturers to set up units closer to the raw material-sourcing centre,” and continued “power is aplenty and the cost works out to 3 cents/kilowatt hour. Our labour law is flexible and cost is around $60/month.”
On Indian investment, he Temesgen : “Around 500 companies have got the licence, but many have not started yet.”
On the sidelines of this discussion, J Thulasidharan, Chairman of Confederation of Indian Textile Industry, told BusinessLine that the East African delegation has been persistently trying to lure entrepreneurs for over a decade now to invest in their country. “There have been bottlenecks, changes in government policy, cultural differences, and so on. The government is proactive now and power is very cheap. Spinning mills that propose to set up a facility there will be able to get home-grown cotton. The restriction on employment of foreign labour is now an issue of the past, and there has been significant improvement on the infrastructure front, such as ports and railways.”
CITI is planning to take a textile delegation to Ethiopia, “but we will have to explore every aspect before venturing to invest there,” he added.
The delegation, meanwhile, said the African Textile Fair is scheduled between October 3 and 6.
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