First of all I would like to Congratulate all members, employees, and stakeholders of the Exchange for our great achievements. Congratulations once again!!
Even though the years are small in number, the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange has come up with new ideas and innovation, and become a brand face for our country. The origins of ECX are based on our agrarian ecology and our ability to cultivate production and productivity. Before ECX the farmers were not directly benefited from their productions.
The Ethiopian Commodity Exchange had cultivated different exchange experiences of other countries. As a result, the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange able to build itself a center of modern trading. In the past few years, with the advent of policy-makers and farmers, there has been a change in attitude with regard to the modern trading system, as well as towards a well-developed and legal-based exchange system.
In this regard, the exchange successfully stretched, well-developed expert based uniform quality standards to all the key export commodities that are traded through the Exchange. This brought a fertile ground to the advance of quality products in the market. The exchange also contributed to modern technology systems and easily applicable systems that foster macroeconomic development. More importantly the Exchange created a well-developed and trust worthy T+1payment System that enabled the seller to get his /her money next day after they traded in the Exchange.
In addition to contributing modern trading IT systems, the Exchange has become to be known a face of modern systems. Every transaction is booked in the database. From commodity arrival to commodity pick up all the process are highly supported by information technology systems. These data and information are highly valuable and helpful as a source of information for national economic analysis and policy decision making as well as simplification of new procedures, simplified data handling, and access to market information for farmers and consumers to be able to compete in the market and decide based on their benefits. All these achievements are acquired by strong cooperation and effort of all stakeholders.
From now on, there is a great deal of work and responsibilities that waited for all of us to carry out diligently.We are expanding our services. The Exchange added Soybean and Chickpea to the trading floor and other commodities will soon join the platform. We have also on the way to establish future and forward contacts. We are helping to store warehouse receipts as a banking guarantee (Warehouse Receipts Financing).
Just as the last decade achievements had already been addressed and recorded here, let’s aspire to the next ten years to work and produce more fruits and success. The future holds different opportunities and challenges which require a farsighted insight. Developing systems that are capable to the dynamic nature of the market and the need of market players should be given a great emphasis. Hence, I call for all stakeholders to join hands in achieving our strategic goals.
Wondimagegnehu Negera
Chief Executive Officer