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Prolific Industrialization
Amen Teferi
Despite global economic slowdown in foreign direct investment flow, Ethiopia has attracted huge FDI. One of the catalytic factors in this growth, I guess, is the development of industrial parks. Ethiopia has been widely engaging in the development of industrial parks and it is striving to be the hub of light manufacturing industries in Africa. No doubt, this is an ambitious plan that requires the full attention of the government who envisage transforming the economy. Thus it is developing world class industrial parks with fascinating hard and soft infrastructure. This is a task mainly entrusted to the Industrial Parks Development Corporation of Ethiopia (IPDC).
The Ethiopian Industrial Parks Development Corporation (IPDC) was established in 2014, as a public enterprise. The Industrial Parks Development Corporation of Ethiopia is mandated to develop and operate Ethiopia’s industrial parks across the country. Inspired by the full support of the federal government, IPDC is becoming an engine of rapid industrialization that nurture manufacturing industries. These parks help Ethiopia in accelerating economic transformation, promoting and attracting both domestic and foreign investors. It avails serviced industrial land, pre-built sheds equipped with all-encompassing utilities and infrastructural facilities that fit international standards.
Indeed, the IPDC, in collaboration with Ethiopian Investment commission and Ethiopian Revenue and Custom Authority and more institutions provides one-stop-shop service for investors investing in industrial parks. This pre and post investment servicing reduce the hustle the investors may face in their investment venture.
IPDC has a mission to be an innovative and leading eco-industrial parks developer and operator in Africa by 2025 and is committed to boost eco-industrial parks development and operation through the highest standards of professionalism; to enhance exports, employment generation and technology transfer and thereby achieve the country’s development goal to be the club of middle-income country.
The construction of industrial parks across the nation is not a task simply driven by crazy paving for industrialization. The parks are being built to achieve the goals and strategies stipulated in the national economic policy and program Ethiopia devised. Thus, the government has embarked on the development of industrial parks with a view to transform the economy.
IPDC has already developed and put in to operation garment and leather product processing parks like the Addis Industrial Village and Bole Lemi I Industrial Parks in Addis Ababa. Kombolcha, Mekelle, Kilinto, Bole Lemmi II, Dire Dawa, Bahir-Dar and Adama, among others, are parks that will soon come into operation.
Besides the recently inaugurated Industrial Parks, Mekele and Kombolcha, the government has commissioned the construction of industrial parks across the country, which currently is at different levels of performance of which industrial parks in Adama, Bahir-Dar and Dire-dawa are expected to be inaugurated at the beginning of the coming Ethiopian year.
Built by the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), the Hawassa Industrial Park, an eco-industrial park, has already gone fully operational and was completed in a record time of nine months that was inaugurated on July 2016. In fact, the Hawassa Industrial Park is a foundation for Ethiopia’s ambition to become the leading manufacturing hub of Africa and is said to be the first sustainable textile and apparel industrial park in Africa with state-of-the-art infrastructure and facilities.
Designed, constructed and operated as a green industrial park, the park applies Zero-Liquid discharge (ZLD) Technology to treat and recycle the industrial and sewerage waste. According to the government sources, 90 % of the treated waste is reused by the park.
We know that HIP is a world-class Eco-Industrial Park principally focused on the industries of Textile and Garment value chain (cluster), for exports. There are 38 factory sheds and different facilities and about 90% of factory sheds had been booked by anchor investors from the USA, India,China, Sri lanka and Indonesia.
As an Eco-Industrial Park, Hawassa is 100% powered by renewable energy sources (Hydro-electricity), and will benefit from a state-of-the-art Zero Liquid Discharge Common Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP) and WWTP (Waste Water Treatment Plant) facility with 11,000 m3/day capacity. Reasonable consumption of power and water are encouraged through Demand-Side Management (DSM) plans.
As a Flagship Project, HIP is built incompliance with the best international standards; as for instance the Sheds for garment meets the standards stipulated in European agreements. Dormitories follow ILO principles and services such as clinic, security and fire-brigade are available on site -24/7.
The construction of industrial parks are the engines of the country`s economic transformation. To be a manufacturing hub in Africa, Ethiopia has been engaged in the development of industrial parks to attract more anchor global companies. By developing industrial parks in different parts of the country, the government is working to sustain the double digit economic growth and realize economic and structural transformation.
Here, sustainability requires a consideration of the social (community) dimension as well as ecological integrity and economic efficiency. And ecological systems emphasize the interaction and interdependence. Thus, definitions of eco-industrial parks have begun to address this by referring to them as communities of business. Industrial ecology is emerging as an exciting approach to the application of environmentally sustainable economic development. Sustainability integrates ecological integrity, economic efficiency and social equity.
However, much of the effort of government and industry since 1987 has emphasized the linkage between economy and environment with much less attention being paid to the social or community dimension of sustainability. Since industry is a human creation and humans are social animals, we need an approach which brings industry and environment together with a social or community perspective.
Ecology is the study of the interrelationships among species and between species and their physical-chemical environments. Key features of ecology are the habitats on which species depend, communities described as a grouping of species occurring in a particular area and ecosystems which are spatially defined assemblages of species, communities and physical and chemical components interacting to form a more or less stable system.
What is significant about the three features of ecological systems is that they emphasize interaction and interdependence. The stability of an ecosystem depends to a large degree on the interconnectedness of the species within the system. These connections expand as the system matures. Humans are part of and interact with other species in ecosystems as well as influencing the physical and chemical character of the ecosystems.
In contrast, industrial systems have tended to emphasize the independence and competitiveness of enterprises. Yet companies are embedded in chains or webs of suppliers and customers, similar to those chains and webs which occur in indigenous or natural ecosystems. In addition, industries are dependent on resources available in the environment to ensure their productivity.
These include the land on which the facility is constructed, the building materials, the hydrocarbons for their energy supply, the water which may be required for processing or cooling and air used by both workers and process equipment. In other words, individual companies and corporations are parts of systems. They are dependent on others and must cooperate with them to survive.
