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The Addis Abeba City Land Development and
Administration Lease Board in its meeting on April
18, 2008, has approved a title deed request by the
Ministry of Trade and Industry (MoTI) for the Akaki
Shoe Industrial Zone. The ministry on March 11, this
year had requested the city administration to grant
a title deed to the former Akaki Pump Factory, which
is now an industrial zone.
The City cabinet had earlier shunned the request
tabled in its meeting held on April 3 after it
decided that decisions involving land should not be
made by the caretaker cabinet anymore. This was to
avoid a possible fraudulent land transfer during the
upcoming administration swap.
During the caretaker administration's ascendence to
power two years ago, there was a massive swindle
that resulted in the arrest of over 60 officials
from the city Districts and Kebeles as well as the
Land Development and Administration Authority (AALDAA).
The council of ministers on January 25 this year has
passed a decision to turn the pump factory,
liquidated 10 years ago, into an industrial zone for
shoe manufacturing under the auspices of MoTI. The
latter has yet to formally receive the chunk of land
and its title deed.
It was Tadesse Haile, state minister of MoTI, who
requested the AALDAA to arrange title deeds for the
industrial zone in March.
Wubishet Berhanu (PhD),
general manager of the city referred the request to
the cabinet. However, members of the cabinet did not
pass any decision claiming that it is the city lease
board that makes such decisions.
The industrial zone, which is 130,264sqm wide, is
the second industrial zone for MoTI next to Addis
Industrial Zone. It is located around the road
stretching from the Kaliti Junction to Yosef Church.
According to a senior official at the ministry,
there are plans to grant the latest industrial zone
to 12 shoe factories. In order to undertake
partition and allocation of plots in the industrial
zone, the title deed is crucial, says the official.
The federal government has set out to boost the
export earnings from the shoe
manufacturing sector, and this industrial zone is
expected to assist the government's agenda.
The Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development
to End Poverty (PASDEP), the five years strategic
plan of the government envisions completely
transforming the Ethiopian leather sector from
producing semi-processed leather to finished
leather. In a bid to increase value added exports
like shoes, the government has imposed a higher
tariff on those exporting semi-processed leather as
of January 1, 2008.
When the plan gets completed, the country
anticipates earning 221 million dollars from the
export of shoe and leather products. Of these
projected earnings, 178 million dollars is expected
to come from the export of shoes.
In the Akaki Industrial Zone, German, Indian and
Italian shoe factories are expected to take plots
and install factories.
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