Ethiopia’s Specialty Export Quality coffee Grows Five-Fold

The Daily Monitor (Addis Ababa) November 27, 2005

Ethiopia’s Specialty Coffee exports has grown five-fold over the last few years, Ethiopian Coffee Exporters Association (ECEA) president Hailu Gebre Hiwot told the Daily Monitor Friday.
Broadly referring to variety of quality Coffee beans, specialty coffees are, by and large, washed coffees.
Enjoying increasing popularity in the world’s market, Ethiopian Specialty Coffees encourage local producers and roster premium prices much higher than ordinary varieties do.
According to the Association’s president, Ethiopia’s last year specialty coffee exports had reached over 50,000 tones – the volume up by a 500 percent against what it was in the same period some six years earlier.
With the opening of more and more coffee washing stations in the country, production of washed coffee has been on the increase at a faster rate than is the case with unwashed ones, according to Hailu.
"Nearly a third of the country’s last year coffee exports were washed beans," he said.
Although the trend for the country’s export of specialty coffees indicates growth, the president noted that Ethiopia was not as yet exploiting fully, its potentials in the sector.
Ethiopia is one of the East African countries which produces about half of the world’s specialty coffee beans. Last fiscal year alone, the country has exported 159.8 thousand tones of coffee and has secured over 334.5 million US dollars, according to the ECEA president.