The chief overseers of Ethiopia’s metal industry, the Metal Engineering Industry Development Institute, have said that they intend to pursue a policy of replacing imported metal presswork products with local and domestic metal products within the next five years.

The statement was made by Director General Getahun Tadele while presenting the institute’s 1st quarter performance report. He pointed out that metal products are one of the main products imported by the country, and it may be a better idea in the long run to begin domestically producing products that the country would otherwise import.

In fact metal products account for 30-40% of Ethiopia’s total imports, as a cost of 33Bn Birr per year.