Following up the Coffee Export Regulatory Directive that was issued on May 2011, the Ministry of Trade has decided to ban some 50 to 55 operators on the basis of failure to comply with the directive. “If an exporter was found storing 500 tons and above without legal shipment contract singed for it, the company would be banned from the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) for three consecutive months, while for a volume ranging from 54 to 500 tons a two month penalty would be applicable,” the directive states. According to the industry players, the international price surge impacted the local market to push the price of coffee at the ECX to escalate. Hence, some of the contractual agreements signed before the price surge could not be honored as it entail loss to the exporters. Some of the foreign buyers appear to be shocked by the news as most of the companies in the list were among the prominent and most active in the industry. Ministry of Trade to ban 3/4 of the active coff...