The Enterprises Holdings and Administration Agency (EHAA), has floated Abaya Agricultural Farm for auction whereby potential buyers are offered full acquisition of the farm.
In a public notice [No.001/2019-2012] issued on Monday, May 4, 2010, the Agency has called on interested and capable investors to take part in the bid to fully acquire and develop the state farm.
Pursuant to the powers and duties vested in it by the Council of Ministers’ regulation number 445/2018, the Agency announced that interested bidders could submit their proposal in accordance with the stated bid notice, which has already been published on local media outlets as of Monday.
The latest bid will be opened inside the Agency’s headquarters located in front of Imperial Hotel, while the bid process will go through to next month until its closing day on July 07, 2020. In addition, the winner is expected to be announced in the afternoon of the stated closing date.
The Reporter has learnt that the farm is highly productive in banana production but has not been properly harvested over the past three decades under the state’s possession.
Along with another state-owned farm, the Arba Minch Farm, the Abaya Farm was under Amibara’s’ Lease Management, leased from the former Privatization and Public Enterprises Supervising Agency a decade ago.
According to various documents The Reporter has reviewed, these two farms have a cultivatable area of 821 hectares and 1,195 hectares, respectively.
The two farms were under the holding of Amibara Agricultural Development for six years, during the then lease agreement that lasted between 2006 and 2012 GC.
Both farms are located in the Southern Regional State to satisfy the needs of the textile and oil mills of the region, with Hawassa and Arba Minch textile factories being major customers of the farms.
Ethiopia’s agriculture, forestry and fishing sectors, which contributed 31.1 percent to the country’s GDP in 2018, are crucial sectors for the country as they employ two thirds of its labor force. Smallholder farmers account for 95 percent of the sector’s production and commercial farms account for the rest. The agri-business sector depends on traditional farming methods and a rain-fed farming system, with the cost of production inputs and transportation high.
Ethiopia’s main staple crop is maize, while the main cash crops are coffee and sesame seed.
It is to be recalled that the enterprise, during the previous fiscal year, reported that a total of 23 public enterprises under its supervision have bagged a combined profit of some 52.3 billion birr during the 2018/19 (2011 EC) fiscal year.
However, the enterprises also announced that its revenues fell short of their plan, achieving only 77 percent of its set target. The plan, for the reported period, was to collect 69.5 billion birr.
