In May 2019 The Reporter reported that the newly formed Ethio-Sugar Manufacturing Share Company had started negotiations to acquire the Wonji-Shoa and Metehara sugar plants.
Wonji and Metehara are long-standing names in Ethiopia’s sugar belt east of Addis Ababa. Privatization and new share-company structures were part of the wider industrial policy that Abiy Ahmed’s government sold as modernization after years of state-led sugar expansion.
Sugar plants matter for jobs, irrigation, and FX when sugar is exported or when imports fill local gaps. Ownership changes also matter for how debt, land, and labor contracts are rewritten.
Kept as business archive, the Wonji–Metehara talks date an attempt to reshape sugar manufacturing through a local share company rather than only through foreign concession headlines.
Sources: The Reporter Ethiopia