Etur Textile, the Turkish textile manufacturer operating one of the largest textile factories in Ethiopia having conducted successful trial exports to Algeria and Morocco is going to start exporting its products in European and American markets.

Adil Basoglu, board member and executive director of Etur, explained that the textile factory has fully embarked on production and it will soon start exporting its products to larger overseas markets. The company aims to become the biggest exporter in the nation.

Basoglu said that they have moved to Ethiopia to become more productive and help out the countries vision in the sector. Hiring more than 800 employees, the factory has stepped up its production to start export in full capacity.

However, employees complain of meager wages, a portion of which is deducted for the recruiting agency but Basoglu said that they have no clear response for that since they know the company is paying them relatively higher salary.

Basoglu also complained about dust blowing from the gravel road that is adjacent to the plant and said that it is affecting business in the production unit. They have informed the city administration couple of times but no quick response yet.

Currently Ethiopia is home for 110 textile companies of which Turkish, Chinese and Indians are major contributors for the textile and garment export which has reportedly grown by 28 percent year on year during the previous fiscal year (2012-2013).

Under the five years Growth and Transformation Plan, currently on its final year, Ethiopia aims to earn USD one billion from the textile industry. But, the country is still far from achieving the target mainly plagued by shortage of raw material such as cotton.

In the last five months of 2014, Ethiopia imported more than 3,000 tons of cotton to meet the demand of domestic textile industry as a short-term measure, Textiles Industry Development Institute (TIDI) said.

Etur Textile is located in Wonji road, six km from Adama town in the south east of the capital Addis Ababa.