Chinese Government provides RMB 40 million grant for Ethiopia-China Agricultural Technology Demonstration Center Project

Project narrative

On May 30, 2008, the Chinese Government and the Government of Ethiopia signed an RMB 40 million agreement for the Ethiopia-China Agricultural Technology Demonstration Center Project. These funds were drawn from two separate Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreements (ETCAs): 50% of the funding came from an ETCA signed on December 18, 2006, and the other 50% came from an ETCA signed on March 20, 2007. China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) made six grant disbursements in 2012 and 2015 worth ETB 27,507,573: an ETB 831,826 disbursement on October 10, 2012, an ETB 7,391,168 disbursement on April 8, 2014, an ETB 3,072,580 disbursement on April 7, 2015, an ETB 6,929,615 disbursement on July 7, 2015, an ETB 6,929,615 disbursement on October 7, 2015, an ETB 2,352,769 disbursement on January 7, 2016. According to the Government of Ethiopia’s Aid Management Platform (AMP), this project achieved a 48% grant disbursement rate (against total grant commitments worth ETB 56,831,074). The project involved the construction of the Ethiopia-China Agricultural Technology Demonstration Center, which consists of a cluster of buildings, training facilities, and dormitories. The center is located 8 km beyond Ginchi town in the Dendi woreda of Oromiya region. It occupies 52 hectares of land, and it was designed to use 5 hectares for offices and training facilities, 3 hectares for experimentation, 31 hectares for crop technology demonstration, 3 hectares for animal raising and demonstration, 2 hectares for fish ponds, 2 hectares of edible fungi demonstration garden, 2 hectares for post-harvest treatment and technology demonstration, and the remaining 4 hectares will be for roads, water channels, walls, and fences, etc. The ultimate purpose of the Ethiopia-China Agricultural Technology Demonstration Center was to promote the transfer of physical agricultural technologies and knowledge from China to Ethiopia and to ensure local capacity building through demonstration and training. Guangxi International Construction Engineering Company was the contractor responsible for project implementation. Guangxi International Construction Engineering Company employed 32 Chinese engineers and technicians and more than 200 Ethiopians during the implementation of the project; their road subcontractor, who had been working in Ethiopia for many years, had a team of 4 Chinese, 7 or 8 skilled permanent Ethiopian staff, and 80–90 temporary workers. Construction began in early 2010. Then, on April 24, 2010, Wei Hongtian, the temporary representative of the Chinese Embassy in Ethiopia, went to the Ginchi area of the state to inspect the project site with a representative of the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture and the mayor of Ginchi. On May 14, 2011, Wei Hongtian again visited the project construction site. A project handover ceremony was held on June 19, 2012, and agricultural experts began work at the center on November 26, 2012. When the construction center was completed, it was turned over to Guangxi Agricultural Science and Technology Company, which managed it for three years (until November 2015) with financing from the Chinese government. According to the terms of an MoU signed in August 2013, the center was to be handed over to the Government of Ethiopia in November 2015.