A private company called Guna Trading House envisaged exporting agricultural products valued at 63 million USD in this Ethiopian fiscal year, its chief announced on Saturday.

The company has planned to sell 40,000 tons of sesame and coffee in the world market in 2002 EC (from July 2009 to June 2010), its General Manager (GM) Mulualem Berhane told ENA in an interview. Ethiopia is expected to pocket 63 million US dollars from these produces to be exported by the company during the period in report.

Guna would export 30,000 tons of sesame worth 40 million USD in this fiscal year increasing both its export volume by 10,000 tons and the amount of foreign currency the nations gets by 13 million US dollars when compared with that of last year.

Mulualem said his company would also ship for the first time 10,000 tons of coffee valued at 23 million US dollars to the global market after it stopped the business (coffee export) for five years for various reasons. It has already exported 70 tons of coffee worth 2.1 million US dollars in the last two weeks alone.

Commenting on the likely effects of the fall of price in the global market on the company’s plan, Mulualem said the company would try to increase as the volume of its export as much as possible to redress the export revenue loss that might be incurred as a result of the fall of demand in the world market.

Both the export volume and the amount of hard currency being secured from the company’s sesame export has increased over the last couple of years.

Guna was used to export an average of 10,000 tons of sesame valued at 11 million USD annually since it was established 17 years ago until 2000 EC. But, its export volume jumped to 20,000 tons last year while the foreign currency the country gets went up from 11 million USD to 27 million USD same period.

Local oilseeds’ exporters used to enjoy huge profits from the seeds due to the global market bonanza for over decade until the beginning of the fall in the price in 2008 due to the global economic crisis. According to earlier reports, the price of sesame has dropped from 2,800 USD per ton on average before July 2,008 to 1,200-1,400 USD this year.

Oilseeds are 2nd in terms generating the country’ export revenue after coffee.

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