Bishoftu Automotive and Locomotive Industry is a company located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The company is mainly working in Industrial Inputs & Parts business sectors.
GM of Bishoftu Automotive Industry, METEC , is a very young looking well-mannered and educated General Manager of this huge complex. He oversees the manufacturing of all products in the vast compound that employs over 3 thousands workers. The colonel confidently told me over 39% of the work force are women. In the few years of the operation of the facility he has managed he has transformed the company. Short of being a garage that repairs military vehicles and tanks it has now emerged to a well-managed production factory. The former government of Ethiopia established this facility to serve as garage and manufacturing of light armaments. The EPRDF government, credit to PM Meles, changed the facility to what it is today.
The Colonel told me it was PM Meles himself who changed the fate of the facility after a single visit. Meles saw the desire and readiness of the workers and decided his government will convert the facility to a manufacturing facility of commercial buses, trucks, construction equipment's and Light Military Vehicles. In fact Meles wrote a 26-page white paper for the Industrialization of Ethiopia that includes the Bishoftu Automotive Industry. That blue print is still the base for the huge complex that is producing all kind of vehicles, from long haul trucks to modern luxury Tourist Buses.
The “yichala” spirit is clearly present at this facility. Despite the problems of not having experienced managers and engineers in the early stages of the facility, today, the facility is well known for producing well-trained work force and is well known in the Horn of Africa. Col Gebremedhin told me that they have customers from Sudan to Mozambique and are constantly visited by regional leaders.