Addis Fortune (Addis Ababa)
Merga Yonas
17 August 2009
The Electronic Ethiopia Project will release into the market in September 2009, 400 units of six types of electronic products which will be assembled in Ethiopia for the first time. This project runs under the Engineering Capacity Building Program (ecbp), which is a joint venture scheme between the governments of Ethiopia and Germany.
Ethiopia is importing electronic products from China, Japan and other parts of the world which are easy to assemble or produce here in the country at the same production cost, Thomas Rolf manager of One Business Solutions at ecbp explained to Fortune. The project, which was funded by the program, was initiated to substitute the import of some of the electronic products. Rolf, who had been working on different projects since 2007, says he initiated the idea.
The products that will be released in September include Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), stabilizers, solar lights, solar kits, burglar alarms, and mobile chargers, with radios to follow in the future. Rolf says that the covers of these items will be manufactured in Ethiopia, while the rest of the electronic parts will be imported.
The Mekelle Institute of Technology is involved in quality assurance, product design, research and development, and prototyping. The pilot products will be produced by the Institute at its laboratories and by its professionals.
The study of the project started in October 2008 by deploying a team of five local and international experts working at ecbp. These experts had been working on marketing, designing and technology. The study had three parts. The first was capacity development on market research, product design and production, sales as well as franchising. The next step focused on an ISO certified production that gave consumers a one year guarantee. The third element involved using state of the art information and communication technology for the production and sale of the products. A cost benefit analysis was also made regarding the product quality.
"Customers will be able to buy electronics that are made in Ethiopia more compared to imported electronics," Rolf told Fortune. "Ethiopia will start getting more independent from imports of electronic products; the promising ICT and electronics sector will also grow, he said
The sale of the pilot products will be franchised to various stores in Mekelle, according to the programme's action plan. The pilot sale is intended to study the demand side of the products, according to Rolf.
A memorandum of understanding has been signed with Mesfin Industrial Engineering Plc (MIE) so that the engineering company will undertake mass production of the products when the pilot phase is over. The company does not yet have the machinery required to assemble the products, but its manager, Tewolde Asfaw, says that the machinery for the assembly will be imported when ecbp and MIT make known their readiness for mass production.
The pilot products will bear the marks of ONE and MIT; MIT will be the trade mark when mass production begins.
The programme wants MIT, which is also a governmental institute, to set an example of best practices. The programme is, however, also undertaking capacity building for MIT, Adama University and Technical and Vocational educational Training (TVET) schools.
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