Celtic Cooling continuing largest African fresh terminal in Ethiopia

The construction of state-of-the-art cold storage for the large, new trans-shipment terminal of Ethiopian Airlines at the airport of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, is halfway completed and being continued according to plan.

During the incidents in the Amhara region, around Bahir-Dar, last week several Dutch flower nurseries were also destroyed, fortunately without apparent loss of life. The fight against the rebels has not changed the long-term plans for Ethiopia. The construction of the largest fresh terminal in Africa is continuing according to plan. Celtic Cooling is now halfway through the construction of this 17,000 m2 cold store complex, which is scheduled to be delivered in May 2017.

Celtic Cooling CEO Joost van Klink: "The majority of the nurseries in Ethiopia are customers of ours. As was nursery Esmeralda Farms, which burned to the ground last week. For the directly involved it's a disaster and a bizarre story that as a result they had to decide not to rebuild the farm and have in the meantime declared the company bankrupt in the Netherlands. Our thoughts are obviously with all those affected by this."

Klink finds it logical that recent events have made potential investors ask questions. On the other hand he does not expect that the conflict will ultimately have a fundamental impact on the development of Ethiopian agriculture in the long term.

With the new air cargo facility in Addis Ababa approximately 600,000 tons of goods can now be loaded annually for shipment to Europe and elsewhere. With five times as much capacity than now, the Ethiopian capital will soon be the biggest hub for cargo traffic in Africa. From the Celtic Cooling cold stores mainly flowers, vegetables and some fruit will be processed.