Ethiopia offers India farmland for investment
- Economic Times
- 02 Feb 2011
Ethiopia has offered 1.8 million hectares of its farmland to Indian investors that equals nearly 40 percent of the total area of the principal grain-growing state of Punjab.
Ethiopia has offered 1.8 million hectares of its farmland to Indian investors that equals nearly 40 percent of the total area of the principal grain-growing state of Punjab.
Indian businessman also has major stakes in farmland investors Ruchi Soya, KS Oils and Equitorial Palm Oil.
Bloqué par des difficultés d’acquisition de terres en Inde, le groupe Karuturi s’est tourné vers l’Afrique et a acheté ses premières parcelles en Éthiopie en 2004. Depuis, ses revenus ont été multipliés par onze, pour atteindre plus de 110 millions de dollars.
Karuturi has an agreement to provide 40,000 tons of rice to neighboring Djibouti.
If what is going on in Gambella was happening in New Delhi, India; in Oxford, England; in Bismarck, North Dakota; in Saskatoon, Canada; this would be unthinkable.
Karuturi is perhaps the poster child for the big land grabs that have characterized large scale agricultural investment in Ethiopia
50yr lease agreement between Ethiopian government and India's Karuturi covering an initial 100,000 ha in Gambela. Contract enables Karuturi to extend concession by another 200,000 ha.
“I got in on the ground floor, others got in on the second floor, but there’s a lot of floors left to go in Africa’s economic cycle,” says farmland investor Sai Karuturi.
Ramesh Krishnaswamy of Karuturi Global in an exclusive interview with CNBC-TV18
Addis Abaaba has decided to withdraw from the regional governments the right of attributing leases of over 1,000 ha. However, the 2010 federal budget lists no income whatsoever, and no information on this subject appears in the quarterly reports of the National Bank of Ethiopia.
India's Karuturi plans to emerge as a leading player in agriculture in the African continent, with revenues from agriculture trumping revenues from floriculture in two years.
Tensions against Indian companies acquiring farmland in Ethiopia are mounting, according to Tehelka