In Fiscal Year 2013/14 (8 July – 7 July), coffee failed to take the lead in trading volume on the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange’s (ECX) trading floor for the second time since joining the exchange in December 2008, both times losing out to sesame.
Sesame first stole the spotlight from coffee, in terms of volume, in 2011/12. Despite the volume, however, coffee still dominated on the total revenue scale in the just ended fiscal year, although the growth rate for sesame is still significantly higher than that of coffee.
Out of the six commodities traded on the ECX floor, sesame, coffee, mung beans and white pea beans registered notable volumes during a financially successful year for the ECX. In total, 26.2 billion Br’s (US$ 1.3 billion) worth of commodities were traded during the current fiscal year; its performance in 2012/13 was 18.9 billion Br.
Sesame attained a revenue of 11.2 billion Br (US$568 million) – up by five billion Birr from the previous year, whereas coffee’s revenue of 13.5 billion Br (US$684 million) showed an increase of only 1.7 billion Br in the same period. The total volume of sesame sold was 280,000tns.
The report showed an increase in absolute terms of nine percent from last year’s performance – from 539 million tonnes last year to 586 million tonnes. At the same time, revenue increased by 38pc.
The market price fluctuation was said to be the reason for the smaller volume of coffee traded, according to the CEO, who pointed this out during the press briefing on Tuesday July 8 at the ECX headquarters.
Trading volumes of commodities amounted to 391,000tns in 2009/10, 500,000 in 2010/11 and 601,000tns in 2011/12. It would decline to 539,000tns the following year, recovering to 586,000tns in the just ended fiscal year.
The just ended fiscal year has also seen the ECX increasing its members from 100 to 346 – 33 of which are cooperatives and unions, with 2.7 million small farmers under them. The ECX also has 14,725 buying and selling clients, mostly individual businesspeople and farmers.
During the press release, the company also announced it is in the final stages of launching a traceability and online trading system, starting from September 2014.
Source: addisfortune
