2023-03-09"Attention!" "One, two!"
"Right face!" "One, two!"
The vibrant slogans resonate across the play ground of the Huajian Light Industry Park. Newly recruited Ethiopian employees, local instructors, and Chinese commands harmonize under the azure sky during their training sessions.
It's been a long while—another batch of new Huajian employees are undergoing pre-employment training.
This scene brings us back to the situation12 years ago when Huajian Shoe Factory first arrived in Ethiopia.
In 2011, the recruitment advertisement for Huajian Shoe Factory was posted at the entrance of the Eastern Industrial Park. Within a few hours, over 300 Ethiopians had applied.
The next morning, more than 1,000 applicants rushed from nearby towns for interviews, causing a commotion at the park's entrance.
Over a decade has passed, and as the Huajian Group evolved from a shoe factory into the Huajian Light Industry City with multiple subsidiaries, the Huajian shoe and apparel factories have initiated a new round of recruitment.
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Over the course of time, Ethiopia has undergone the initiation, development, and peak of foreign investment, only to subsequently decline. The constant amidst these changes over the past decade and more is the formidable army of unemployed young men and women in the local community.
At its zenith of investment in Ethiopia, Huajian Group addressed the employment needs of 7,000 locals. However, with the waning of the AGOA in Ethiopia, American buyers started to depart. For this enterprise exclusively oriented towards exporting to the United States, Huajian Group's investments in Ethiopia were significantly impacted.
On February 25th, when a high-level delegation led by the Minister of Finance of Ethiopia, Ahmed, appeared at the Ethiopia-China High-Level Investment Forum, Chinese investors displayed an exceptional level of rationality in discussions and speeches. Gone were the days of easily swayed excitement witnessed a decade ago; instead, there was a series of thoughtful questions after calm consideration.
What is the way forward for Ethiopia? How will Ethiopia repay its outstanding loans to China? Ethiopia must tread the path of rectitude to regain the ability to repay. Some Chinese investors also need the Ethiopian platform to realize their aspirations.
For Huajian Group, the most significant gain from this forum was helping Ethiopian officials understand that supporting existing foreign-funded enterprises in Ethiopia is equally important and more feasible than attracting new investments.
Rather than loudly proclaiming Ethiopia as the best choice for Chinese investment, it is more practical to do concrete work for Chinese enterprises already invested in the country.
The departure of AGOA has caused numerous Chinese enterprises to lose business opportunities. Apart from lamenting the harshness of the Americans, the ultimate responsibility lies with the Northern War in Ethiopia. The bill should be footed by the Ethiopian government, not foreign investment enterprises. What the government should do is allow companies relying on exporting to the U.S. to swiftly transition to domestic sales.
The government has finally realized this, and the Huajian Light Industry City, initially required to be 100% export-oriented, has finally obtained permission for domestic sales.
The Director of the Ethiopian Investment Bureau’s Commission, Lelise, did not forget the commitment of Zhang Huarong, Chairman of Huajian, at the forum. On the fourth day of Chairman Zhang leading the investors to Ethiopia, Lelise also arrived at the site of Huajian Light Industry Park to address issues.
With the impetus of the policy allowing domestic sales, several enterprises have already begun to contact Huajian Light Industry City, and a few have started or completed the procedures for entry into the park.
All these projects represent recently popular local industries, including printing factories, packaging materials manufacturing plants, and concrete processing plants operated by China National Building Material Group Co., Ltd.
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———鸟Aerial view of Huajian Light Industry City———
In recent years, land prices in Ethiopia have multiplied or even reached dozens of times compared to past. Industrial land in the capital, Addis Ababa, is particularly scarce and precious.
Huajian International Light Industry City is the sole privately-owned industrial park situated within the boundaries of the capital - Addis Ababa. Located within the inner ring of the city, the project spans an area of 138 hectares, with a distance of only 1.5 kilometers from the train station leading to the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway and 10 kilometers from the Bole International Airport.
The park offers standard factory buildings for rent built to Chinese construction standards and well-leveled land available for sale. Nestled between hills and surrounded by newly developed apartment buildings, Huajian International Light Industry City provides an ideal construction site for both commercial and residential developments for Chinese real estate developers.
As Ethiopia's economy is on the path to recovery, Huajian International Light Industry City welcomes all Chinese enterprises, including those already invested in Ethiopia, to establish a presence in the industrial city for mutual success.
