Saudi Arabia’s Horizon Plantations and Ethio Agri-CEFT are working towards doubling Ethiopia’s coffee production and expand its tea output.

Part of the Mohammed International Development Research and Organization Companies (MIDROC) group that is majority owned by Saudi Arabian investor Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi, the company trades its coffee through the Neumann Kaffee Gruppe.

Horizon is owned by Saudi Arabian investor Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi and its list of buyers includes US-based Starbucks, Munich-based Dallmayr, Germany-based roaster Tchibo and Seattle’s Caffe Vita.

The annual coffee production of the firm from its southern Ethiopian plantations spread across 25,000 hectares is more than 10,000 tonnes. The company exports 70% of its total produce.

The Reuters quoted Horizon Plantations managing director as saying: "In the coming five years, we have a plan to raise our coffee produce to 25,000 tonnes.

"100% of our coffee could be exported once we attained the quality we need."

According to official figures, Ethiopia produced around 450,000 tonnes over the 2013/14 period out of which it exported around 190,000 tonnes that resulted in earnings of $841m. However, this was a decrease of 193,000 tonnes from the record production of the previous year.

Al Amoudi who has already invested in Ethiopian construction, agriculture and mining now plans to inject $5bn more in Ethiopia’s agriculture and agro-processing over the 2016-2021 period that will help in expanding the tea production of the country.

MIDROC’s Ethio Agric-CEFT aims to increase its tea production to 7,000 tonnes in the next few years.