Browsing by Author "Gonfa, Birkinesh"

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    Competitiveness of Ethiopian Shoe Industry: Response to Export Market
    (Addis Ababa University, 2012-06) Gonfa, Birkinesh; Estiphanos, Girma (PhD)
    Ethiopian Leather development strategy has put the shoe industry on the forefront position to accelerate the development of the sector. The study focuses on Ethiopian shoe industry competitiveness and its export market performance. The main purpose is to find the factors that are impediments for competitiveness of shoe industry at firm level and to find out the peculiar problems of shoe manufacturing in the export activities. Concepts of competitiveness and measures have been discussed. The Porter diamond model has been chosen to analyze firm level competitiveness. The result depicts the very low status of competitiveness of the Ethiopian shoe industry. At the firm level, all the determinants of competitiveness (Factor conditions, related and support industries, firm structure, strategy and rivalry, Demand conditions) are found to be insignificant. Among the factors, related and supporting industries and factor conditions mainly limit the firms from utilizing their cost advantage to sustained market share on the domestic as well as on the international market. The study foreword some recommendation or policy implication based on the analysis. Some of the major recommendations are: on the importance of import substitution strategy in complement with the export-oriented strategy is highly magnified in the study for the sector long run development. Promoting Investment on supporting Industries are crucial in solving problems in the whole value chain of the industry. Government involvement to create access to reliable and low cost of inputs and access to finance is crucial for shoe industry competitiveness. The other important area that needs an improvement is the quality of shoe products and utilization of PMA, here the importance of firms, government and other institutions collaborate with each other to tackle the problems is very crucial to improve the competitiveness of Ethiopian shoe industry.