Binyam Tamene
30 November 2008
Addis Ababa — Coffee trading officially joined the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) on Wednesday, but its operation date delayed to next week, Tuesday.
November 27 was meant for the coffee trade to be operational date, the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange, however, said the date is pushed forward to Tuesday December 2 in order "to enable market actors more time to complete account opening and other requirements as well as to make deposits for trading." At present, nearly 200 lots have been deposited, said the ECX officials adding the Exchange estimates that 1800 lots will be available to start trading at launch on December 2, which will ensure lively trading sessions for the various coffee beans of the country.
In addiction, the coffee auction trading system that has been practiced for a long time in the country was replaced by the new trading scheme under ECX.
Ethiopia, Africa's largest coffee producer, earned $525.2 million in coffee exports in 2007/08.
ECX began receiving coffee deposits in its Addis Ababa coffee warehouse a day ahead of the schedule on Saturday November 22, said Dr. Eleni Gebremedhin, ECX Chief Executive Officer during a launching ceremony held at Sheraton Addis.
"A challenge encountered in the initial period was the lack of compliance by suppliers to the standard lot sizes required for deposit," said ECX in a press statement sent to The Daily Monitor.
The ECX standard lot size for an ECX trading contract is 30 bags of either washed or unwashed coffee.
Since then to present, the ECX said on the launching ceremony coffee deposits from various regions have been graded according to the new ECX coffee standards and warehouse receipts have been issued accordingly.
Dr. Eleni said ECX has begun grading and accepting coffee deposits in its warehouse in Addis Ababa as of Monday November 24, 2008.
She said the ECX trading system will also aimed at preserving Ethiopia's specialty branded coffees, as it is well known throughout the world for its weakness.
Moreover, the coffee quality inspection laboratories which were only limited in Addis Ababa are now distributed through other eight coffee producing areas.
The ECX coffee standards are on a scale of 1 to 9 grades (and Under Grade) per type and origin of coffee, she said.
The ECX standard lot size for an ECX trading contract is 30 bags of either washed or unwashed coffee. In the case of washed coffee, the standard bag weight is 65kgs and 85 kgs in the case of unwashed coffee.
Ethiopia is the largest coffee producer in Africa with an annual production of around 330,000 tones, most of which is consumed locally.
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