Agence France Presse
ADDIS ABABA, July 22
Ethiopia and Djibouti have set up a free trade zone on their border for goods worth up to 2,000 birrs (285 dollars), an Ethiopian weekly reported Wednesday.
An official in charge of northeastern Ethiopia's Afar Authority for Trade, Industry and Transport, Mohamed Abubaher, said that 250 licences have recently been issued, the Efoyta weekly said.
Small business linked to industry and agriculture, apart from coffee, is free of trade barriers and customs fees, Abubakar added, according to the paper of the ruling Ethiopian People's Democratic and Revolutionary Front.
Abubaher stressed that relations with Djibouti were excellent and that similar trade relations had existed with Eritrea until Asmara "adopted a policy of aggression against Ethiopia."
He was referring to a territorial dispute that escalated into warfare in May and remains simmering, despite an effective truce, between Ethiopia and Eritrea, whose rebel armies fought together to rout the dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991.
When Eritrea became fully independent from Ethiopia in 1993, Addis Ababa was deprived of its Red Sea ports.
The port of tiny Djibouti to the northeast has replaced Assab in Eritrea as Ethiopia's main source of imports and exports by sea, following an initial deterioration in ties when Asmara introduced its own currency and began charging Addis Ababa what it regarded as extortionate rates.
The former free trade zone in the Zala Anbesa district of northern Ethiopia was the scene of heavy fighting and artillery fire in late May and early June.
While both countries have agreed not to carry out air raids after some such attacks, and each says it wants a peaceful settlement to the dispute over land that has been ill-defined since colonial times, Addis Ababa and Asmara have massed troops and armour on their 1,000-kilometre (600-mile) border.