The Ministry of Finance has announced that it has released a new tariff directive regarding import-export and manufacturing in Ethiopia.
According to the ministry, the directive is designed to encourage domestic manufacturing in order to decrease the amount of goods that the country imports. Such developments are expected to solve both the country’s galloping inflation rates as well as foreign currency shortage.
The directive was designed by a Tariff Committee composed of experts from the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Revenues, the Ministry of Trade and Industry, and the Customs Commission. It includes new guidelines for more than 8,000 raw materials, consumer products, and capital products all listed in a new Tariff Book.
In order to make the agricultural and manufacturing sector more central in the Ethiopian market, the directive takes two primary approaches. The first approach, conditional on the product being manufactured domestically at a sufficient rate, is raising the tariff on imported goods.
The second approach, if a given product is not being manufactured domestically at a sufficient rate, is to decrease tariffs on resources required for domestic manufacturers to manufacture at a sufficient rate.