The Addis Abeba City Administration has constructed a livestock market at Karra at a cost of 52 million Br that will replace the existing open-air market.

Started a year ago, the trading centre facility features a cattle feed entrepot, a water tank, a clinic, a cattle saddling and unloading space, two sheds, three security houses, a cafe and an office.

Expected to be inaugurated at the end of this week, the centre was built by BGM Construction, a company that was established 13 years ago. Resting on 14,000Sqm of land, the facility has the capacity to serve a minimum of 2,000 and a maximum of 3,000 cattle a day. The centre is designed and constructed with halls where the cattle can spend the night. It also has 18 showers and toilets for the public, office employees and livestock traders.

The market will help the trading system remain orderly and proper, according to Solomon Bekele, a trade transaction director at the Addis Abeba Trade & Industry Development Bureau. “It's a solution for illegal trade,” Solomon told Fortune.

The existing marketplace is poorly conditioned, and trading has been taking place in almost a traditional way, according Sewagegnehun Dagne, general manager of the Ethiopian Livestock Traders Association, which was established in 2004 and has 280 cattle trading members. Out of the total, 63 of them are exporters, while the remaining are farmers who fatten cattle.

“Traders and buyers were facing challenges for the past year in terms of poor facilities, security and illegal transactions,” Sewagegnehun told Fortune.

“It'll help both the government and traders to regulate tax revenue collection as well as the safety of the cattle," said Sewagegnehun. "The country's livestock trading centres lag behind other countries that use alternative markets."

In addition to the newly constructed Karra Cattle Trading Market, Addis Abeba has four cattle trading centres under the City Administration at Qera, Asko, Akaki Qality and Shegole market, which is found in Gullele District.