Grasping sustainability: a world-class textile and garment industry can become Ethiopia’s finest asset
Dr Maximilian Martin, Exclusive for Addis Standard
In the 1860s,an English discoverer named C.T. Beke proposed to construct a 225-mile railroad to open up trade with the southernmost territories ruled by the Pasha of Egypt who nominally reported to the Ottoman Empire. His motivation was to provide ready access to source from the cotton fields of Ethiopia, connecting the coast of the Red Sea with the Upper Nile Valley. Nearly 150 years later, the Ethiopian Government, through its Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) that seeks to raise GDP by 11-15 percent per year in the 2010-2015 period, is engaging in massive industrial and infrastructure projects; a 1,500 mile-long standard gauge rail network that will help overcome the landlocked country’s infrastructure limitations and render a national trade logistics strategy viable being among them.
