Kombolcha Steel Industry Goes into Production

The 75 million birr first phase of the Kombolcha steel products industry, standing on 4320 square miles of land, was inaugurated last Saturday by Ato Kassahun Ayele, Minister of Trade and Industry.

The factory, which manufactures different types of corrugated and ribbed sheets, is equipped with highly automated and computerized shearing, corrugating and cold forming machines with an average annual capacity to produce 10 million pieces of corrugated sheets and 4 million pieces of EGA sheets, is located in Kombolcha town, Southern Wollo.

The factory is a member of Midroc Ethiopia Group whose chairman is Sheik Mohammed Al-Amoudi. It aims at manufacturing and selling different types of metal and engineering products that are applicable for construction and non- construction purposes such as various types of corrugated and ribbed sheets, pipes, window and door profiles, structural steel profile, paint and tin cans, pylons, containers and other related products. It also envisages to perform galvanizing, color coating and painting services.

The phase-by-phase strategy will be executed in order to diversify the products and to capture the wide Ethiopian and East African market in the area of steel industry.

"Our objective is to change Ethiopia's light metal industry to heavy metal industry and as a goal to reduce Ethiopia's foreign exchange expenditures on imported finished goods," says Alfred Ireland, deputy-general manger of Midroc Ethiopia. According to Yaregal Haddis, deputy general- manger of the factory, Kombolcha was selected because of its proximity to the port of Djibouti, the non-existence of a similar factory in the north of the country and the investment incentives given by the regional administration.

During the past eight years, 190 investment projects by foreigners with an aggregate capital of 10 billion birr have been licensed in the country. With an aggregate capital of birr 33 billion birr 5000 local investors have also been licensed. MIDROC Ethiopia has so far invested over 800 million dollars and employs a total of 15,000 people out of whom only 70 are foreigners.