Capital

Seeing is believing

Capital: Six companies from the Nottingham Chamber visited Ethiopia. Does your visit have any relation or follow up to that delegations?
Mr.Jonathan Webber: I can not answer this question because it was a different chamber of commerce and I was not on it.
To be quite clear, the fact is that the chamber movement in the U.K. has somewhat changed. Nottingham has merged with other organizations in the U.K.; now it is Nottingham Derby Chamber which is a different organization. By the way I was a little bit shocked to find out although the Birmingham Chamber has been coming to Africa for 27 years, I was told this is our first visit to Ethiopia and I am sure it will not be our last.
Birmingham as I said has been coming here for 27 years; we are committed to coming to Africa. Last year, we were in Kenya, Tanzania and Juba. This year we have been to Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia. The feedbacks from the delegates in this mission has been overwhelmingly positive and I can not see any reason at all missions to Ethiopia can not continue to arrive.
Capital: What discussions have you held with Ethiopian government officials?
Webber: To begin, the assistance that we were given by your embassy in London has been first rate. As a chamber of commerce and the second city outside London, we get a lot of official visitors coming through for instance your Ambassador and your commercial counselor have come to see us twice. They have made every effort to make this visit a success and their effort has worked.
Orlando Ames – Lewis, is it head, Trade and Investment in East Africa, I went to visit the Minister of Trade and Industry; it was very enlightening and I thought it was very worth while. I was very impressed by the Minister’s long term vision and I was equally interested in what he has for short term challenges that are present in the market place now. We did touch on some of the things that are a little challenging; such as inflation and access to foreign exchange which is clearly something causing grief in the market place. Equally, we discussed opportunities of going forward and looked at the various sectors that have a rightful increase investment into development for export, floriculture, leather, agro processing, potentials for tourism and eco-tourism, infrastructural needs of power roads and so on. Above all I was most impressed with the attitude towards education which is clearly deep seated and a very necessary and huge advance.
Capital: Of the sectors mentioned which do you think have the most potential for investment growth in Ethiopia?
Webber: Clearly, there is going to be a substantial opportunity in floriculture and horticulture I think there are big possibilities, but technological developments are required such as post-harvest technology. There is opportunity there but they are going to have to look at logistics, how they move things around and I suspect there will be an issue of volume.
The Minister emphasized leather, tannery and skin; he mentioned some interesting investment activity taking place here.
Capital: When foreign investors come to countries like Ethiopia, they need guarantees for their investments, and a liberalized financial sector. In Ethiopia, the financial sector has not yet liberalized. How do you think this will affect investment?
Webber: Opening the banking sector and the financial system in general leads you into that opportunity for private capital investments. We were discussing amongst the delegates and the Chamber of Commerce here, that, investors and businesses need certain things. Above all, when a business enters a market it is necessary there is stability. But equally, the opportunity to work with the financial organizations would be more comfortable if you know who to work with. There is a certain comforting factor for business in that a certain security.
Capital: Did you reach there any concrete agreements on partnerships or joint ventures during your mission?
Webber: It is a little early as business partnerships take a while, I can not be absolutely specific who is doing what, it wouldn’t be fair but I can say business is being conducted.
If we had this conversation ten years ago, I would be talking about joint ventures, which is not the case today. Currently of is about partnerships, about two way trade or more; it is not only selling, not is it only about buying or just investing, as well. Trade is a great leveler; and successful businesses are about relationships. Although not everyone might agree with me, if we look around the world and see that Birmingham, London, Addis Ababa and Nairobi, have exactly the same problems; they may be of different magnitude but they are precisely the same sort of problems.
I tell you for a fact what is important are issues of: how do I get to the market? How do I distribute and how do I get paid; these issues are exactly the same here as in Birmingham. So what we are really talking about it is not joint ventures yet. Maybe we will come to that lat it is about building partnerships and awareness and making sure the business is there. We have been impressed with what we have seen and the reception we had. The insights we gleaned will go back to Britain and we will be talking to people and open an awareness of what is available for businesses in this market. And again, I emphasize it is not simply investing; it is about making sure that partnerships work to the benefit of both sides.
Capital: What was your preconceived image Ethiopia?
Webber: To be honest, that is a tricky question. When the commercial officers visit the U.K., which they do once a year, give or take, you meet somebody on the street and at some stage in the conversation eventually will rise, questions like; ‘I have been to Ethiopia What do you think about it?’ will be asked. Life is about perception not about reality; it is about what people think rather than what really is. If you ask the average person in the U.K. ‘What do you think about Ethiopia?’ they probably associate it with challenges, trouble, famine, drought and. Strangely enough, I have seen that it is peaceful here. It is a very orderly, happy and very confident society. Yes there are certain issues but these are manageable, since have got a government that is committed to managing the problems. Brining missions and delegations here enables them to go back and report on what they have seen. And what they see is uniformly positive, it reflects a country that has vision and knows where it is going.
The different issues such as like the opening up of capital markets, foreign exchange availability and so on Essentially the reason I would like to continue bringing such delegations is in order to ensure that the word gets out and about among British business persons.. There is a team at the British Embassy here called U.K. Trade and Investment, that can facilitate partnership and links and will help in any way possible. Upon request.
Ethiopia has, of course, made major strides in the last five to ten years. There was a conference in New York on September 24, 2008 which was heavily promoted by the British government as well as by the Secretary General of the United Nations, and that too, I hope, will focus the attention of the world on Ethiopia; that the current reality of Ethiopia is somewhat better than its reputation.