Addis Ababa – Ethiopia earned $436.73 million from the manufacturing sector exports in the Ethiopian fiscal year 2016/17 that ended on July 8.

The export revenue met only 47.8 per cent target of the $913.66 million projected earlier.

Assefa Tesfaye Corporate Communications Director at Ethiopia Ministry of Industry told Xinhua on Tuesday that lack of management and technological capacity of some industries, insufficient supply of manufacturing inputs, quality problems with manufacturing inputs and delay in commissioning of several industries contributed to the disappointing result.

The industry ministry also faulted a commissioning lag in some manufacturing plants operating in Ethiopia’s Hawassa Industrial Park for the disappointing export revenue.

Built by China Civil Engineering Corporation, the Hawassa Industrial Park, located 275 kilometres south of capital of Addis Ababa, was inaugurated in July 2016.

Eighteen companies have already started operations in the industrial park and, six of them are presently exporting their products to the global market.

Once operational at its full potential, the park is expected to generate $1 billion annually, mainly from textile and garment sector. It is the textile and garment sector that showed its most disappointing result earning the East African country 89.3 million dollars in export revenue out of a planned $271 million.

Xinhua.