With the construction of a 4 billion birr worth of Sheger cooking oil factory in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia aims to minimize a bit of foreign currency expenditure
borkena
December 30, 2019
The construction of Ethiopia’s giant cooking oil factory is launched this past weekend.
Acting Mayor of Addis Ababa City, Takele Uma, laid the cornerstone for the construction on Sunday.
Named as Sheger cooking oil factory, will be constructed in Bole sub-city near Yetebaberut Adebabaye.
Its construction is apparently a public-private partnership between the City Administration and Mohammed International Development Research and Organization Companies (MIDROC), which belongs to Ethiopian born Saudi Billionaire Mohammed Al Amoudi.
When operational, the company is expected to produce 600,000 liters of cooking oil per day – as per the report by Ethiopian News Agency (ENA).
It will be processing about 500 metric tons of oilseeds which could be supplied locally. Oilseeds are among Ethiopia’s agricultural export items but the earning is meager as it is not value-added.
The project is highly regarded by government authorities as there is an expectation that it can do away with the import of cooking oil which is consuming a considerable foreign currency.
According to information from the Office of the Prime Minister, Ethiopia spends about 25 percent of foreign currency on the purchase of subsidized cooking oil.
The construction costs about 4 billion Ethiopian Birr and is expected to be completed within 18 months. However, it is unclear as to what percent of the cost is covered by Mohammed Al Amoudi.
“The edible oil factory with processing capacity of 500 MT of oilseeds is expected to not only save foreign currency expenditure, but also fulfill the unmet demand for edible oil of residents of Addis Ababa and surrounding cities of the Oromia region,” the Office of the Prime Minister announced in an update on Sunday.
The project is also treated as one of the areas that the “Home Grown Economic Reform Agenda” seeks to address.
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