Ethiopia has been selected for the second time as the “Official Portrait Country” for this year’s Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) at the annual event to be held in Seattle from April 9 to 12 to further develop business relationships, learn about new products and trends in specialty coffee, and take part in skill building workshops and lectures.
Asefa Mulugeta, Director General, Export Promotion Directorate with the Ministry of Trade said, the Ethiopian government works to introduce Ethiopian products to the world market through establishing Export Products Directorate under the Ministry of Trade to provide appropriate information and advisory services for customers. Various works have been done on the business fora undertaken in Turkey, Canada and Egypt for sharing experiences on the coffee market and introducing the country’s professional, cultural and social products.
Asefa also said: “For the first time, Ethiopia had participated in Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) in 2008 in Minnesota Minneapolis and introduced not only our coffee production but also our cultural features with successful demeanor. Ethiopian Fine Coffees facilitates business and provides marketing and promotion services to help accelerate the business of existing trading partners.”
Ethiopian Coffee Exporters Association /ECEA/ Board President Hussein Agraw, said that Ethiopia is a place where over 6,000 known coffee varieties exist and is the only country with wild varieties that remain to be discovered. While Ethiopia has been selected and will be integrated into the professional, cultural and social events in SCAA, it plays an important role to flourish coffee culture and production in the world market.
Deputy Chief of Mission to U.S. Embassy, Peter Vrooman said on his part that coffee is a backbone of Ethiopian trade, agricultural production and to the Ethiopian economy as a whole. Ethiopia met the coffee exporters standard in 2013. It is also one of the key components for the U.S. Government to support the development and expansion of the Ethiopian coffee value chain from farmers to the trading platforms
to the international markets through the Feed the Future Presidential Initiative, led by USAID and its Agribusiness and Market Development Project.
With funding from the U.S, the United States Agency for International development (USAID) in Ethiopia has provided significant assistance in designing, planning, and coordinating support to the Ethiopian working group to promote Ethiopian coffee internationally while also strengthening the Ethiopian Coffee Exporters’ Association, the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange, and Ethiopia’s Ministry of Trade.
USAID has supported coffee growers to improve the quality of their product, helped establish the ECX and assisted them to develop a quality testing lab that was recently the first lab in Africa to be certified by the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA).
[TheEthiopianHerald]
[Image Source: ethiopianfinecoffees.com]