Authorities Begin Sifting through Bids for 8 Sugar Factories
ADDIS ABABA – The government received offers to acquire Ethiopia’s eight state-owned sugar enterprises up for sale as part of its privatization push.
The tendering process saw more than 20 foreign and domestic investors officially register interest in the sugar plants in March. Interested investors were subsequently given until Oct 5, 2023, to make their technical and financial bids.
Today, the Ministry of Finance has announced the receipt of technical and financial proposals for the privatization of eight state-owned sugar enterprises.
The ministry has “thanked those who have participated in the bidding process and have submitted their technical and financial bids on time.”
An evaluation team is currently reviewing the technical bids and will communicate its findings with qualified bidders by Oct 20, 2023.
The team will then proceed to evaluate the financial offers of those bidders who have successfully passed the technical assessment, the finance ministry says.
Descriptions of the criteria were set out in the Request for Proposal (RFP) shared with interested investors.
The factories up for in sell are Omo Kuraz 1, Omo Kuraz 2, Omo Kuraz 3, Omo Kuraz 5, Arjo Dedessa, Kessem, Tana Beles, and Tendaho sugar factories are the subject of the tendering process.
Most of them are newly constructed factories with built-in trunk infrastructure, water, and land resources.
The factories are also engaged in the production of ethanol and electricity for internal use and to supply to the national grid.
“The privatization of the sugar estates marks a pivotal move to ensure national public resources by shifting forward to a competitive market structure with a greater role for the private sector in the economy,” the finance ministry said.
