08:49 a.m. Jun 29, 1998 Eastern
ADDIS ABABA, June 29 (Reuters) - Ethiopian coffee officials said on Monday that the country's mainstay coffee industry is flourishing under free-market reforms and had already surpassed last year's sales.
Ethiopia sold a record 133,139 tonnes of coffee worth $445.7 million in the first 11 months of the year, industry officials told Reuters. It sold 129,155 tonnes of coffee worth $398.2 million in the 1996/97 year ended July 7.
Tsegaye Berhane, head of Ethiopia's Coffee and Tea Development Authority, said a total 113,321 tonnes worth $387 million has already been exported in the current fiscal year. Another 19,818 tonnes in export contracts have been signed and will be shipped shortly, he said.
Ethiopia is Africa's third largest coffee producer after Uganda and Ivory Coast, with annual production ranging between 250,000 and 300,000 tonnes. The crop generates about 60 percent of the country's foreign currency earnings.
Tsegaye credited the growing coffee exports to better technology, improved quality control and government incentives aimed at attracting private sector investment.
Tsegaye said Ethiopia's coffee exports have not been affected by a recent border war with neighbouring Eritrea which has diverted Ethiopian shipping to the Red Sea port of Djibouti.
Ethiopia used the main Eritrean ports of Massawa and Assab prior to the conflict.
``With the help of Djibouti port authorities, Ethiopian coffee (has) been delivered to buyers without delay,'' he said.