A technical team from the United States Agricultural Department (USDA) Washington office including the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) of USA, Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), and Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) paid a visit to ECX on September 15, 2023. The purpose of the visit was to get an understanding of agricultural statistics and market information systems available at ECX that would be used in designing a program that supports the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA).

During the visit, Ato Behailu Nigussie, Deputy CEO of the Exchange, conferred with the team members briefed on the Exchange’s business processes, capabilities, and infrastructures used in fostering and facilitating agricultural commodities trading and the dissemination of reliable, accurate, and timely data to various traders and regulators. 

In addition, Ato Behailu highlighted the importance of ECX in promoting fair trade practices, ensuring quality standards, and facilitating trade access for Ethiopian agricultural commodity producers, aggregators, and exporters. He also underscored the importance of having standard commodity quality parameters and a uniform regulatory framework at regional and continental levels for the integration of African commodity exchanges to realize the AfCFTA dream.

Both parties expressed their interest in exploring opportunities to knowledge sharing, capacity building, and market development initiatives that are relevant to realizing the vision of AfCFTA. 

Finally, the technical team has visited the ECX electronic Trade (eTRADE) platform and internationally certified Coffee Laboratory.