Mon 22 Oct 2007
Livestock exports are a key source of hard
currency for the country, which earned $52 million from the sector last year.
"The government will soon organise
trading centres where pastoralists would receive competitive prices ... to
discourage illicit trade which loses the country over $138 million
annually," Assefa Mulugeta, head of the Agriculture Ministry's Livestock
Department, told Reuters.
Assefa said Ethiopian cattle and goats were
being smuggled overland to neighbouring countries before being shipped to the
"We have to try and convert the illegal
practice into a legal one. Nothing would be achieved through forceful
measures."
SOURCE : Reuters, October 22,2007