Ethiopia: The Coffee Summit Between ECX and SCAA Convened in Addis
Gadaa.com has confirmed that a small group from the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) is currently in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, to meet with the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) representatives – the story first broken by Wondwossen Mezlekia earlier last week through his article: “Window dressing of Ethiopia’s coffee exchange” (AbbayMedia).
Coffee is the major foreign currency earner of Ethiopia; it’s primary harvested in the State of Oromia as well as the Sidama region of the South Ethiopia. Despite coffee being one of the highly-traded commodities, small coffee farmers live in poor and deplorable conditions in Ethiopia.
The Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) is the first-of-its-kind commodity trading system in Ethiopia, and if not, most sub-Saharan Africa. Although most accept the idea of “ECX” in principle, they are very skeptical about the independence of “ECX” from TPLF (the ruling party), which controls almost all economic sectors of Ethiopia through its quasi-private, quasi-endowment political-party-owned business companies, of which EFFORT is the dominant one. EFFORT is controlled by top officials of TPLF with the Prime Minister’s wife, Mrs. Azeb Mesfin, as its Deputy CEO.
When ECX came to existence about a year ago, the TPLF government forced independent coffee exporters to join the exchange, and in some cases, it confiscated their coffee beans and sold them at price levels not acceptable to the owners of the beans. It remains to be seen if these independent coffee exporters survive the dominance of EFFORT-owned companies in the ECX.
The Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) has been at odds with ECX due to the trading mechanism impacting SCAA’s access to specialty coffee – ECX controlled coffee trades in Ethiopia in December 2008.
The Coffee Talks between ECX and SCAA in Addis will last for four days (from Oct. 20 to Oct. 24), according to Wondwossen Mezlekia. SCAA has disclosed that its group in Addis “has defined objectives from the trade/consumer perspective and is committed to working with the ECX and the Ethiopian trade to develop viable solutions to meeting those objectives.”
No further details are available now about the meeting. In the meantime: “prepare to embrace another wave of media stunt from ECX and the government,” as Wondwossen Mezlekia mentioned in “Window dressing of Ethiopia’s coffee exchange.”
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