A meeting between Abera Deressa (PhD), state minister for Agriculture and Rural Development (MoARD), and meat exporters ended in disagreement over low meat export.

The meat exporters could go back to the Prime Minister's Office who prompted the meeting by expressing his dissatisfaction over poor export performance at the monthly meeting of the National Export Coordination Committee.

The purpose of the meeting held on Tuesday, December 8, 2009, at MoARD was to discuss the obstacles to export. However, the state minister started off the meeting by placing blame on the six companies in the sector.

"The government is offering you incentives so you can do your job right. If you do not do that we will take back the incentives," he said, as quoted by one of the managers of the six companies who took part in the meeting.

Abera defended his statement saying that there was no question that the businesses would lose their incentives if the expected results were not achieved.

The company representatives told the state minister that they were in the business for purpose of commerce and not to please the government, adding that their problem was the poor supply of cattle.

The six companies included Elfora Agro-processing, Helmex, Modjo Modern Export Abattoir, Luna Export Abattoir, Organic Export, Abergelle International Livestock Development Plc and Ashraf Industrial Group. These companies were expected to export 2,000tn of meat between 2004 and 2008, but the actual performance was less than half that; the target was set low because of the export ban to Saudi Arabia.

The target for 2009/10 is to export 15,892tn and earn 55.8 million dollars. However, the performance of the first quarter has been very disappointing, an expert in the area says. The target for the first quarter was 10.6 million dollars, but the performance was only 5.2 million dollars.

Abera based his argument on a USAID survey, which indicated that Ethiopia has a livestock population of eight million and accused the companies of performing below capacity. He made accusations that the procrastination of the exporters was making it difficult for the country to earn as much as it should from its livestock resource.

"The country's livestock resource is more than enough for 60 meat exporters; and the government is prepared to provide incentives for all of them," Abera said.

The exporters, however, say that most of the animals on the market did not fulfil their quality criteria, although Abera would not easily discount all eight million animals on that claim.

The state minister and the business people were not able to agree during their entire meeting. The meeting was concluded with a decision: that the Livestock and Milk Development Institute in collaboration with the USAID should conduct a study to understand the nature of the problem.

The following day the businessmen had their own meeting through their association where they agreed that they did not need to be accused of poor export performance and that the state minister did not appreciate their side of the matter. They have agreed to take their case to the Prime Minister's office for a possible meeting with the Prime Minister, himself.