MINATO-KU, Tokyo – ITOCHU Corporation announced in August that it has concluded a memorandum with the Ethiopian Textile Industry Development Institute (ETIDI) and the Ethiopian Investment Commission (EIC) to foster and develop the Ethiopian textile industry.
The Ethiopian government is aiming to shift to an economic structure that focuses on industry as well while encouraging economic growth with agriculture at the core. Recently, the government has been encouraging the fostering of the textile industry nationwide, including the improvement of industrial complexes for textile products and the attraction of foreign plants of Western brands. Interest in Ethiopia as the production area of textile products is increasing. However, the Ethiopian textile industry has not yet reached a level sufficient to be competitive in the global market. To utilize the Ethiopian textile industry as a production base for the Japanese market, which requires particularly strict global quality management, it is absolutely essential to offer support aimed at highly developed production management, including productivity improvement and guidance on sewing techniques.
ITOCHU’s Textile Company is expanding its business domain from the upstream field, the legacy textile industry, to the downstream field, and it is deploying businesses globally in a variety of textile-related regions. The company rapidly expanded its textile product production business to China and the Asian region as well and contributed to the improvement of the production management level in these regions, along with the development of the textile industry. With the conclusion of this memorandum, ITOCHU will contribute to the fostering and development of the Ethiopian textile industry by utilizing the Textile Company’s extensive experience and expertise, contributing to trade promotion between Japan and Ethiopia in the future.
Outline of the memorandum
- Support for the improvement of the quality and productivity of textile products made in Ethiopia
- Support for the enhancement of the recognition of raw materials and textile products made in Ethiopia
- Support for the establishment of a quality assurance system in Ethiopia
ITOCHU Corporation is a Japanese corporation headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo and of is one of the largest Japanese trading companies. ITOCHU Corporation engages in such investments as textile; machinery; metals and minerals; energy and chemicals; general products; ICT; and realty.
Source: Corporation’s website