ESAT News (august 29, 2017)
Revenue from export trade fell short of its goal with only 2.9 billion dollars of the targeted 4.75 billion dollars earned this year, according to the country’s Ministry of Trade.
The Ministry said of the 2.9 billion dollars obtained, coffee took the lion’s share of the proceeds. Even then, proceeds from coffee fell 58 million dollars short of the targeted 1 billion dollars, earning about 882 million dollars.
Proceeds from the export of 48,000 tons of Khat, an hallucinant chewed in East Africa and the Middle East, has shown over the target revenue of 272.9 million dollars.
Last year, earnings from export trade also fell short of the target. About 2.8 billion dollars of the goal 4.2 billion was secured.
Despite rhetoric of miraculous economic development by regime officials, the country ranks 123rd in the world in foreign trade earnings, third from the bottom, only ahead of Afghanistan and Gambia.