Empowering Manufacturing SMMEs for National Economic Transformation and Societal Prosperity !
The Institution establishes an effective market linkage system to ensure manufacturing enterprises benefit from both domestic and international markets by sourcing market opportunities, enhancing marketing skills, fostering an enabling legal and business environment, and facilitating transactions through digital marketing and e-commerce platforms/portals. It also creates input linkage systems enabling manufacturers to secure raw materials from domestic and foreign suppliers.
Furthermore, the Institution creates favorable conditions for manufacturing enterprises to establish sustainable market linkages among themselves, with large-scale enterprises, and with other entities and organizations. It supports manufacturing enterprises in developing brand identities to promote their products and institutions, and provides necessary assistance to enterprises producing import-substitute goods so they can supply their products to importers and domestic buyers.
To enable manufacturing enterprises to leverage export opportunities, it facilitates continuous market linkages among enterprises as well as with large-scale manufacturers and exporters. Finally, it drives initiatives that promote market discovery, refine marketing skills, establish conducive legal and business environments, organize promotional events, and empower manufacturing enterprises to actively participate in digital trade.
The Institution constructs, administers, and transfers production, display, and sales centers for use by manufacturing enterprises. It provides the necessary technical support to regional states and city administrations in constructing and upgrading their production centers.
Furthermore, to ensure that production centers and facilities are equipped with basic infrastructure (such as roads, power, water, telecommunications, and other utilities), the Institution collaborates with relevant stakeholders to provide end-to-end support—from identifying infrastructure needs to final delivery.
The Institution facilitates international, national, and regional events and forums that display the national capacity of manufacturing enterprises, enable experience sharing, and enhance their sales capacity. It identifies national and international exhibitions and bazaars, providing targeted support to ensure active enterprise participation.
Furthermore, it promotes the products of manufacturing enterprises through newly established and existing display and sales emporiums, as well as various digital platforms. It provides institutional support to regional authorities to set up digital marketing platforms and physical emporiums, alongside developing operational guidelines for their implementation.
To increase demand for domestic manufactured products, the Institution collaborates with relevant stakeholders to dispatch product samples to Ethiopian embassies and consulates abroad, while actively promoting products through websites, catalogs, magazines, brochures, and other effective marketing channels.
Finally, for domestic investors seeking to enter the manufacturing sector, it organizes consultative forums and produces audiovisual media content focused on sector constraints, opportunities, and operational achievements, ensuring broad dissemination across key channels.
14. Definition and Baseline
14.1 Small Manufacturing Enterprise Definition and Baseline
A Small Manufacturing Enterprise is defined as an enterprise employing between 11 (eleven) and 50 (fifty) permanent workers, with total assets ranging from ETB 600,001 (six hundred thousand and one) to ETB 10,000,000 (ten million). However, in cases of ambiguity between employee count and total assets, total assets serve as the governing criterion. Currently, 17,964 small manufacturing enterprises meeting these criteria are active in Ethiopia.
14.2 Medium Manufacturing Enterprise Definition and Baseline
A Medium Manufacturing Enterprise is defined as an enterprise employing between 51 (fifty-one) and 100 (one hundred) permanent workers, with total assets ranging from ETB 10,000,001 (ten million and one) to ETB 90,000,000 (ninety million). However, in cases of ambiguity between employee count and total assets, total assets serve as the governing criterion. Currently, 6,498 medium manufacturing enterprises meeting these criteria are active in Ethiopia
