It is reported that a Turkish investor has a received license for steel production in Ethiopia's Oromia regional state.

According to the project manage, Mr Endashaw Zenebe, the owner of the plant steel factory is named Tayfun Arik who is to invest the total project capital is about ETB 201.3 million with 50,000 square meter of land allotted for the project.

He said that the project has four phases with the first taking about 16 months and the other three phases will take place 10 months for each year. He added that hopefully the project will finish in five years. The factory has the capacity to produce 130,000 tons of different construction steel and metal productions and will create 350 permanent jobs. The owner discussed with both higher regional and federal officials about the need, importance, availability and demand of the local market and was encouraged to start the steel factory.

The owner suggested Alemgena, Tatequ (Burayu) and Debre Ziet as options of the project and will present in the next three weeks the issue of land to the Oromia regional state. However, according to their plan of action they will start their full capacity of the project at the end of September 2008.

The factory plans to meet the high demand for construction and building materials locally and also plans to export to neighboring countries.