During the evaluation of the cotton development and textile industry performance for the first half of the fiscal year 2015-16, EDITI said that the target was to obtain $60.07 million from textile exports, while only $41.1 million was achieved, meeting 70 per cent of the plan.
The evaluation also revealed that cotton production was planned on 262,000 hectares of land, while only 65,000 hectares of land was used for cotton production. The El Nino destroyed cotton crops over 14,000 hectares of land.
Lack of continuous power supply, weak company linkage, shortage of manpower, and delay in implementing investment projects accounted for the weak export performance of the Ethiopian textile industry during the six-month period.
Abebe Kasse, institute plan and information management director, said that the government wants the textile sector to be export oriented and give emphasis to quality. He also said that the institute believes that the textile industry can achieve the export target for the year in the coming six months. (HO)
Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India