Competitiveness of Ethiopian Shoe Industry: Response to Export Market
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Date
2012-06
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A.A.U
Abstract
Ethiopian Leather development strategy has put the shoe industry on the forefront
position to acce lerate 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 finn 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 finns, government and other institutions collaborate with each other to tackle the
problems is very crucial to improve the competitiveness of Ethiopian shoe industry
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Keywords
Industry Response, Export Market