By Hayal Alemayehu & Wudineh Zenebe
Karaturi Global Limited, India’s largest private investment company in Ethiopia, is expecting to generate USD one billion in export revenues. The amount (which is half of the country’s export income of the previous year) is expected to be earned from the 311,000 hectares that it will be cultivating in Ethiopia, Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi, founder and managing director of the Indian conglomerate told The Reporter.
The company acquired about 300,000 hectares of land in Gambela region where it will cultivate maize, rice, palm and sugarcane while it received the balance around Holeta area for a rose farm project, according to Karuturi.
The Indian conglomerate, which received the largest farmland allotted for investment project in Ethiopia, is finalizing negotiation with the Exim Bank of India which gave it the green light to raise a USD 180 million for the USD1.4 billion ambitious project the company is set to launch. The total amount of land the company took is about six times the size of Addis Ababa.
“The bank is willing to provide us a USD 50 million guarantee to raise a USD 180 million for the project,” Karuturi told The Reporter. “We will be raising the balance from various financial institutions to realize our project.”
The first phase of Karuturi’s project involves a 100 ha of land on which the company will cultivate maize, rice, palm and sugarcane, according the Karuturi. The company plans to set up a sugar, palm oil and rice factories in Ethiopia in the future.
Karuturi will start exporting next March while it expects to generate export revenues worth USD one billion when production is in full swing.
Sources told The Reporter that Karuturi has been given the green light from the Ministry of Water Resources to use the Baro River, one of the tributaries of the Blue Nile, for its farmland in Gambela region. The company will simply divert water from the river and use it to develop the region, according to Karuture.
The company last week received 15 brand-new tractors made by the renowned, U.S.-based tractor manufacturer, John Deere, for its project. The company received the tractors from Gedeb Engineering, the sole supplier of tractors in Ethiopia. Having a horse power ranging from 425 to 475, each tractor has a capacity to cultivate over a 100 ha of land an hour and the company will procure more of them in the coming months.
The company, according to the plan, was supposed to receive the tractors at a ceremony to be held at the Millennium Hall. However, with the company that administers the hall, Addis Park, requesting a 200,000 birr, Karuturi received the trucks at a ceremony held at the NOC fuel station close to Bole International Airport.
Karuturi told The Reporter that his company in Ethiopia currently hires up to 10,000 employees while the number of permanent and temporary employees will jump to 40,000 when the company starts cultivating the whole 311,000 ha land.
