The Ministry of Industry (Mo) officially inaugurated a duty-free store that displays leather products inside Bole International Airport terminal. In the past two months, the store sold leather products valued at 200,000 dollars. The management of Ethiopian Airlines Group availed 200sqm area at the airport’s terminal for the duty-free shop while Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) provided financial and technical support. The opining of the duty-free shop aims at promoting Ethiopian leather products and boosting export earnings from the sector. The leather industry has so far not managed to maximize its gains by manufacturing value-added products although the country possesses the largest livestock population on the continent with over 123 million heads of cattle, sheep, and goats. The scarcity of foreign currency gravely affected the industry's export earnings; generating close to 40 million dollars last year. The export revenue from the leather sector accounts for less than one percent of the annual export revenue. Last year, the country earned 4.1 billion dollars from the export sector, 14pc higher than the previous year’s earnings.

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