Assessment of Challenges and Performance of Ethiopian Export Market

Abstract

Export is an important ingredient for country’s economic growth and sustainable development, like in Ethiopia; it is the back bone of the country’s economy. The main objective of the study was to assess challenges, opportunities and performance of Ethiopian export market in the past three years (2015 -2017). The study was conducted by the relevant primary and secondary data from the key staff member of the exporting companies, their associations and the government bodies through questioners and deep interviews. After the data has been collected, it was analyzed by using simple statistical techniques which is tables and percentages. The findings of the study showed that, there are many challenges in the internal and external environment of the exporters. The major factors are strong international competition, high transportation costs and ineffective national export promotion programs. In the overall export performance as country wide was deteriorating year after year and the firm’s perception about their performance was extremely dissatisfied. However, the country has opened many doors for promoting the sector in many incentive packages. Finally, based on the findings, results and analysis of the study a general and policy implication recommendations are forwarded. In general recommendations, top management of the company should work on the improvement of their product quality and uniqueness, the firm should be cost sensitive for their products by minimizing costs and increase their competitive advantages in the global market. In additional, the policy implications to increasing the availability of credit facilities, simplifying export sector regulations and formulation short-term and long-term export growth policies are essential to improve export performance of the country.