You know, there's a small country nestled in the Himalayan Mountains, far from these beautiful mountains, where the people of the Kingdom of Bhutan have decided to do something different, which is to measure their gross national happiness rather than their gross national product. And why not? After all, happiness is not just a privilege for the lucky few, but a fundamental human right for all. And what is happiness? Happiness is the freedom of choice. The freedom to chose where to live, what to do, what to buy, what to sell, from whom, to whom, when and how. Where does choice come from? And who gets to express it, and how do we express it?
你們知道,有一個小國家坐落在喜馬拉雅山山脈上。 在這些美麗的山脈的遠方, 不丹王國的人們決定做一件不一樣的事, 那就是測量他們的國民快樂指數, 而非他們的國民生產毛額。 為何不呢? 畢竟,快樂不是少數幸運者的特權, 而是所有人的權利。 那麼,什麼是快樂? 快樂是能夠自由地選擇。 自由地選擇要住哪裡, 做什麼,買什麼 -向誰買,賣什麼,怎麼賣,何時賣,賣給誰。 選擇是從哪來的? 有誰能將它表現出來? 我們又該如何表示它?
Well, one way to express choice is through the market. Well-functioning markets provide choices, and ultimately, the ability to express one's pursuit for happiness. The great Indian economist, Amartya Sen, was awarded the Nobel prize for demonstrating that famine is not so much about the availability of food supply, but rather the ability to acquire or entitle oneself to that food through the market. In 1984, in what can only be considered one of the greatest crimes of humanity, nearly one million people died of starvation in my country of birth, Ethiopia. Not because there was not enough food -- because there was actually a surplus of food in the fertile regions of the south parts of the country -- but because in the north, people could not access or entitle themselves to that food. That was a turning point for my life.
其實,表現選擇的方式之一就是透過市場。 運作良好的市場提供多種選擇,最終, 也展現一個人追求快樂的能力。 印度偉大的經濟學家,Amartya Sen (阿瑪特雅深)曾獲諾貝爾獎。 他證實了饑荒不完全和食物的供給量有關, 反而在於某人有取得食物, 或是有權力透過市場取得食物的能力。 1984年,在我的國家,衣索比亞, 發生了可被視為人類最大罪行之一的事 -- 將近一百萬人死於飢餓。 並不是因為糧食不足 -- 因為當時國家南部肥沃區域 實際上是糧食過剩 -- 而是因為北部的人們 無法取得那些食物。 那是我人生的轉捩點。
Most Africans today, by far, are farmers. And most of Africa's farmers are, by and large, small farmers in terms of land that they operate, and very, very small farmers in terms of the capital they have at their disposal. African agriculture today is among, or is, the most under-capitalized in the world. Only seven percent of arable land in Africa is irrigated, compared to 40 percent in Asia. African farmers only use some 22 kilograms of fertilizer per hectare, compared to 144 in Asia. Road density is six times greater in Asia than it is in rural Africa. There are eight times more tractors in Latin America, and three times more tractors in Asia, than in Africa. The small farmer in Africa today lives a life without much choice, and therefore without much freedom. His livelihood is predetermined by the conditions of grinding poverty. He comes to the market when prices are lowest, with the meager fruits of his hard labor, just after the harvest, because he has no choice. She comes back to the market some months later, when prices are highest, in what we call the lean season -- when food is scarce -- because she has to feed her family and has no choice.
到目前為止,今天大多數的非洲人都是農夫。 而且,一般來說, 大部分的非洲農夫,按所經營的土地而言,都是小農夫; 還有那些按可使用資金非常有限而言的小小農夫。 非洲是世界上農業資金嚴重不足的國家之一,甚至是最不足的。 和亞洲百分之四十的可耕地比起來, 非洲只有百分之七的可耕地受到灌溉; 和亞洲每公頃使用144公斤的肥料比起來, 非洲農夫每公頃只使用22公斤的肥料。 亞洲的公路密度比非洲郊區大六倍。 拉丁美洲的拖拉機數目是非洲是八倍; 亞洲的拖拉機數目是非洲的三倍。 非洲小農夫的生活並沒有太多選擇, 因此也就沒有太多的自由。 他的生活 被困苦不堪的環境所注定。 收成之後,他帶著少量且劣質, 卻是辛苦所種的水果到市場上。那是市場價格最低的時候, 但他沒得選。 幾個月後, 當市場價格最高的時候,也就是我們所謂的淡季, 糧食缺乏的時候,她再回到市場上, 因為她要養活她的家人,她沒得選。
The real question is, how can markets be developed in rural Africa to harness the power of innovation and entrepreneurship that we know exists? Another notable economist, Theodore Schultz, in 1974 won the Nobel prize for demonstrating that farmers are efficient, but poor. Meaning, in fact, that farmers are rational and profit-minded just like everybody else. Well, we don't need, now, any more Nobel prizes to know that farmers want a fair shake at the market and want to make money, just like everyone else. And one thing is clear, which is at least now we know that Africa is open for business. And that business is agriculture. Over two decades ago, the world insisted to Africa that markets must be liberalized, that economies must be structurally adjusted. This meant that governments were to remove themselves from the business of buying and selling -- which they did rather inefficiently -- and let the private market do its magic. Well, what happened over the last 25 years? Did Africa feed itself? Did our farmers turn into highly productive commercial actors?
真正的問題是, 市場要如何在非洲郊區發展, 才能利用創新和企業家精神? 另一位著名的經濟學家,Theodore Schultz(舒爾茲), 1974年獲得了諾貝爾獎,因他證實了農夫有效率, 卻仍是貧窮。 意思是說,事實上農夫和大家一樣, 是理性的,是想賺錢的。 好啦,我們不需要更多的諾貝爾獎 來得知農夫和大家一樣, 想要在市場上有公平的待遇以及想賺錢。 有一件事很清楚,至少我們現在都知道, 非洲開放買賣, 而這買賣就是農業。 二十多年前,世界堅持非洲市場自由化, 也就是經濟必須在結構上有調整。 這意味著政府 要退出市場, (雖然他們很沒有效率,) 讓自由是市場施展自己的魔法。 好啦,那過去的那二十五年發生了什麼事? 非洲自給自足了嗎? 我們的農夫有了高產量的商業行為嗎?
I think we're all in this room, probably, because we know that, in fact, Africa is the only region in the world where hunger and malnutrition are projected to go up over the next 10 years, where the food import bill is now double what it was 20 years ago, where food production per capita has stagnated, and where fertilizer use has declined rather than increased. So why didn't agriculture markets perform to expectations? The market reforms prompted by the West -- and I've spent some 15 years traveling around the continent doing research on agricultural markets, and have interviewed traders in 10 to 15 countries in this continent, hundreds of traders -- trying to understand what went wrong with our market reform. And it seems to me that the reforms might have thrown the baby out with the bath water.
我想我們會在這裡, 很可能的,是因為我們知道事實上 非洲是全球唯一一個預期未來十年飢餓人口和營養不良人口 會持續增加的地區。 現今這裡的糧食進口帳單 是二十年前的一倍, 每人平均的糧食產量停滯不變, 而且肥料的使用不但沒有增加反減少。 為什麼農業市場沒有表現的如預期中的那樣? 西方國家提出市場改革, 而我也花了十五年之久遊走非洲大陸, 對農業市場進行研究, 且訪問了10至15 個國家上百位商人, 試著了解我們的市場改革到底哪裡出了問題。 我發現這改革 似乎排除了最重要的東西。
Like its agriculture, Africa's markets are highly under-capitalized and inefficient. We know from our work around the continent that transaction costs of reaching the market, and the risks of transacting in rural, agriculture markets, are extremely high. In fact, only one third of agricultural output produced in Africa even reaches the market. Africa's markets are weak not only because of weak infrastructure in terms of roads and telecommunications, but also because of the virtual absence of necessary market institutions, such as market information, grades and standards, and reliable ways to connect buyers and sellers. Because of this, commodity buyers and sellers typically transact in small circles, in narrow networks of people they know and trust. And because of that, as grain changes hands -- and I've measured that it changes hands four, five times in its trajectory from the farmer to the consumer -- every time it changes hands -- and I've seen this all over rural Africa -- it also changes sacks.
以農業為例, 非洲市場上的資金極為不足,且非常沒有效率。 從我們所做的研究可得知, 到達市場之前的手續費 和在郊區的農業市場的交易風險 是非常高的。 實際上,非洲只有三分之一的農產品 能達到市場。 非洲市場會如此的弱 不僅僅因為公路和電訊的基本建設不發達, 也因為在實質方面缺乏市場制度, 如市場資訊,等級和標準, 以及聯繫買賣雙方的可靠方式。 因為這樣,買賣雙方通常會在小範圍內, 和自己熟識、信任的人做交易。 所以,隨著穀物轉手 -而且我計算過, 從農夫到消費者需要轉4、5次。 每轉手一次,就換一次包裝, 全非洲都是如此。
And I thought that was incredibly peculiar. And really realized that that was because -- as traders would tell me over and over -- that's the only way people know what they're getting in terms of the quantity and the product quality. And that actually has huge implications for the ability of markets to quickly respond to price signals, and situations where there are deficits, for example. It also has very high cost implications. I have measured that 26 percent of the marketing margin is simply due to the fact that, because of the absence of grades and standards and market information, sacks have to be constantly changed. And this leads to very high handling costs. For their part, small farmers, who produce the bulk of our agricultural output in Africa, come to the market with virtually no information at all -- blind -- trusting that they're going to have some sort of demand for their produce, and completely at the mercy of the merchants in the only market, the nearest local market they know -- where they're unable to negotiate better prices or reduce their risk.
我覺得這真是太怪異了。 後來我才真正明白,也是商人所一再的告訴我的, 只有這樣,人們才會知道 他們所得到的數量和品質。 這裡頭含有強列的暗示, 例如市場反應市場價格 和資金不足的能力。 這樣的做法隱含非常高的成本。 我計算出26%的邊際市場 會這樣一直換包裝, 純粹是因為缺乏市場資訊, 等級和標準。 這導致非常高的手續費。 對小農民而言,就是那些生產非洲大部分農產品的人, 幾乎是盲目地到市場上,他們一點資訊都沒有, 卻相信自己的產品 會有一定的需求。 他們在所知道的、唯一一個市場(最近的那個)上 完全任由商人擺布, 而他們講不到更好的價錢或降低自己的風險。
Speaking of risk, we have seen that price volatility of food crops in Africa is the highest in the world. In Africa, small farmers bear the brunt of this risk. In fact, in my view, there is no region of the world and no period in history that farmers have been expected to bear the kind of market risk that Africa's farmers have to bear. And in my view, there is simply no place in the world that has grown its agriculture on the kind of risk that our farmers in Africa today face. In Ethiopia, for example, the variation in maize prices from year to year is as much as 50 percent annually. This kind of market risk is mind-boggling, and has direct implications for not only the incentives of farmers to invest in higher productivity technology, such as modern seeds and fertilizers, but also direct implications for food security.
講到風險,我們已經看到 非洲的糧食價格波動率是全球最高的。 在非洲,小農民首當其衝地面對這些風險。 實際上,在我看來,歷史上沒有一個地區的農民 會期待承受非洲農民 所承受的市場風險。 在我看來, 世界上沒有一個地方的農業發展 面臨像非洲所面臨的風險一樣。 打個比方,在衣索比亞, 玉米每年價格的變化高達百分之五十。 這樣的市場風險令人難以置信,且不僅和鼓勵農夫 投資高生產率的技術有直接的牽連, 例如現代種子和肥料, 也和食品安全有直接的關係。
To give you an example, between 2001 and 2002, Ethiopian maize farmers produced two years of bumper harvest. That in turn, because of the weak marketing system, led to an 80 percent collapse in maize prices in the country. This made it unprofitable for some farmers to even harvest the grain from the fields. And we calculated that some 300,000 tons of grain was left in the fields to rot in early 2002. Not six months later, in July 2002, Ethiopia announced a major food crisis, to the same proportions as 1984: 14 million people at risk of starvation. What also happened that year is in the areas where there were good rains, and where farmers had previously produced surplus grain, farmers had decided to withdraw from the fertilizer market, not use fertilizer and actually had dropped their use of fertilizer by 27 percent. This is a tragic example of arrested development, or a budding green revolution stopped in its tracks. And this is not just specific to Ethiopia, but happens over and over, all over Africa.
舉例來說,2001到2002這兩年, 衣索比亞種植玉米的農民有著異常多的收穫。 然而,因著供給大於需求, 導致了這國家的玉米價格下跌了80%。 這使得光是收割穀物都對農夫來說毫無利潤可言。 我們統計,2002年年初時, 約有三萬噸的穀物留在田裡,任憑腐壞。 過了六個月,2002年七月,衣索比亞宣布重大的糧食危機, 規模和1984年,一千四百萬人面臨饑荒一樣。 同年還發生了一件事, 在雨水充沛和農民有穀物生產過剩的地區, 農民決定撤離肥料市場, 不使用肥料, 實際上降低了27%的肥料使用量。 這是發展延滯的一個悲慘的例子, 或者是正萌芽的變革停止往前。 這不僅僅發生在衣索比亞而已, 而它是一而再,再而三的在非洲發生。
Well, I'm not here today to lament about the situation, or wring my hands. I am here to tell you that change is in the air. Africa today is not the Africa waiting for aid solutions, or cookie-cutter foreign expert policy prescriptions. Africa has learned, or is learning somewhat slowly, that markets don't happen by themselves. In the 1980s, it was very fashionable to talk about getting prices right. There was a very influential book about that, which was mainly about getting governments out of the market. We now recognize that getting markets right is about not just price incentives, but also investing in the right infrastructure and the appropriate and necessary institutions to create the conditions to unleash the power of innovation in the market. When conditions are right, we know and see that that innovation is ready to explode in rural Africa, just like anywhere else.
我今天來這裡不是為了要哀悼這情形,或表示我的憤怒或不滿。 我來是要告訴你們,事情悄悄地在改變。 現今的非洲不再是已往等待物資救援, 或是落入外國專家政策法規的俗套裡的非洲。 非洲已學會,或是正在學懂 -儘管有點慢- 市場不會自己形成和發展。 在二十世紀的80年代,很流行說 要取得正確的價格。 當時有一本影響這件事很深的書, 主要是說到要把政府趕出市場。 現在我們明白了,要讓市場正確運作, 不只是價格刺激,還需要投資正確的基礎建設 和合適且必須的機構, 好製造釋放市場創造力的環境。 當環境對了,我們就知道且能看見 非洲郊區的創造力準備好要爆發了, 就像任何其他地方一樣。
Nearly three years ago, I decided to leave my comfortable job as a World Bank senior economist in Washington and come back to my country of birth, Ethiopia, after nearly 30 years abroad. I did so for a simple reason. After having spent more than a decade understanding, studying, and trying to convince policymakers and donors about what was wrong with Africa's agricultural markets, I decided it was time to do something about it. I currently lead, in Ethiopia, an exciting new initiative to establish the first Ethiopia Commodity Exchange, or ECX. Now, the commodity exchange itself, that concept, is not new to the world. In fact, in 1848, 82 grain merchants and farmers got together in a small town at the crossroads of the Illinois River and Lake Michigan to establish a way to trade better amongst themselves.
約三年前,我決定離開我在華盛頓世界銀行 擔任資深經濟學者的舒適工作。 過了將近三十年在國外生活, 我回到我的出生地,衣索比亞。 原因很簡單。 我花了十年以上的時間研究, 並試圖使決策者和捐贈者 信服非洲農業市場的問題, 我覺得該是行動的時候了。 最近我在衣索比亞領導一個令人興奮的新方案, 為了建立衣索比亞第一個商品交易所,簡稱ECX。 如今商品交易本身對大家來說 並不是新概念。 事實上,在1848年,82名穀商和農民 聚集在伊利諾斯河和密西根湖交叉點的一個小城鎮, 試圖建立一個對彼此更有利的交易方法。
That was, of course, the birth of the Chicago Board of Trade, which is the most famous commodity exchange in the world. The Chicago Board of Trade was established then for precisely the same reasons that our farmers today would benefit from a commodity exchange. In the American Midwest, farmers used to load grain onto barges and send it upriver to the Chicago market. But once it arrived, if no buyer was to be found, or if prices suddenly dropped, farmers would incur tremendous losses. And in fact, would even dump the grain in Lake Michigan, rather than spend more money transporting it back to their farms. Well, the need to avoid these huge risks and tremendous losses led to the birth of the futures market, and the underlying system of grading grain and receipting -- issuing warehouse receipts on the basis of which trade could be done.
芝加哥交易所 -- 全球最有名的商品交易所, 就是這樣誕生的。 和芝加哥交易所完全一模一樣的原因, 就是希望我們的農民 也能從商品交易中獲利。 在美國中西部,農夫過去往往會把穀物 用駁船載往上游到芝加哥市場。 然而當貨物抵達,卻找不到買家 或是價格突然暴跌,農夫就得承受重大的損失。 事實上,他們甚至會把穀物投入密西根湖裡, 也不願花更多的錢把穀物運回農場。 為了避免這些巨大的風險和重大的損失 導致期貨市場的出現, 那麼穀物分類和驗收的基礎系統 -- 基於貿易核發倉庫收據 是可以做到的。
From there, the greatest innovation of all came about in this market, which is that buyers and sellers could transact grain without actually having to physically or visually inspect the grain. That meant that grain could be traded across tremendous distances, and even across time -- as far forward as 18 months into the future. This innovation is at the heart of the transformation of American agriculture, and the rise of Chicago to a global market, agricultural market, superpower from where it was, a small regional town. Now, over the last century, we tend to think of commodity exchanges as the purview of Western industrialized countries, and that the reference prices for cotton, coffee, cocoa -- products produced mainly in the south -- are actually a reference price, or a price discovered in these organized commodity exchanges in the northern countries. But that is actually changing.
從這裡開始,市場最偉大的創新出現了, 買賣雙方不需親自審查 也能夠完成交易。 這表示穀物的交易能夠跨越很長的距離, 甚至是時間 -- 能夠提前做18個月後的交易。 這項創新是美國農業核心的變化, 使得芝加哥從一個小小的地方城鎮, 躍昇為國際市場、農業市場和一個強大的都會區。 現在,在上一個世紀, 我們一直覺得商品交易 是西方工業化國家的特權。 南部主要出產的 棉花、咖啡、可可的參考價格, 實際上是北方國家 有組織的商品交易所訂定的參考價格。 但這確實有在改變。
And we're seeing a shift -- powered mainly because of information technology -- a shift in market dominance towards the emerging markets. And over the last decade, you see that the share of Western exchanges -- and this is the U.S. share of exchanges in the world -- has gone down by nearly half in just the last decade. Similarly, there's been explosive growth in India, for example, where rural farmers are using exchanges -- growing here over the last three years by 270 percent a year. This is powered by low-cost VSAT technology, aggressively trying to reach farmers to bring them into the market. China's Dalian Commodity Exchange, three years ago, 2004, overtook the Chicago Board of Trade to become the second largest commodity exchange in the world. Now, in Ethiopia, we're in the process of designing the first organized Ethiopia Commodity Exchange. We're not trying to cut and paste the Chicago model or the India model, but creating a system uniquely tailored to Ethiopia's needs and realities, Ethiopia's small farmers.
我們正目睹著改變, 這改變主要是由資訊科技所驅動的。 是一個市場優勢到新興市場的轉變。 過去十年,你可以看到西方交易量 -- 也就是美國佔全球的交易量 -- 在十年內下滑將近一半。 同樣的,在印度卻有了暴增, 比如說,郊區的農民利用交易所, 這裡過去三年的成長是每年增加百分之270。 這是由低成本的小型衛星地面站(VAST)科技所驅動的, 他積極地聯繫農民,為了將他們帶進市場。 中國的大連商品交易所在三年前, 2004年,取代了芝加哥交易所, 成了世界第二大的商品交易所。 如今,在衣索比亞,我們正在計畫 建立衣索比亞第一個商品交易所的過程中。 我們並不是要模仿芝加哥或是印度的範例, 而是根據衣索比亞小農民的需要 和實際情形, 來量身訂做一個特製的系統。
So, the ECX is an Ethiopian exchange for Ethiopia. We're creating a system that serves all market actors, that creates integrity, trust, efficiency, transparency and enables small farmers to manage the risks that I have described. In the design of our commodity exchange in Ethiopia, we've done something rather unique, which is to take the approach of an integrated perspective, or what we call the ECX Edge. The ECX Edge pretty much creates the entire ecosystem in which the market will develop itself. And this is because one of the things we've learned over the last decade of studying market development in Africa is that the piecemeal approach does not work. You've got one donor trying to develop market information, another trying to work on or sponsor grades and standards, another ICT, and yet another on warehousing, or warehouse receipts.
因此,EXC就是衣索比亞特有的商品交易所。 我們正在創造一個適合所有市場參與者的系統。 它產生誠實、信任、效率、透明度, 且使得小農民可以應付我所說的那些風險。 在所設計的衣索比亞商品交易所中, 我們做了一件與眾不同的事, 就是採取綜合的觀點, 或是我們所稱的ECX優勢。 ECX優勢大致上創造了整個生態體系, 使市場能在其中自我發展。 這是鑑於我們在過去十年 研究非洲市場發展所學到的一件事, 就是零散的接洽是沒有用的。 一位捐贈者試圖開發市場資訊, 另一位試著從事製定贊助者等級和標準, 再有人想做資訊通信技術,然後另有人投資倉儲,或者是倉庫收據。
In our approach in Ethiopia, we've decided to put together the entire ecosystem, or environment, in which trade takes place. That means that the exchange will operate a trading system, which will initially start as an open outcry, because we don't think the country's ready for full electronic trading. But at the same time, we'll do something which I think no exchange in the world has ever done, which is itself to operate something like an Internet cafe in the rural areas. So that farmers and small traders can actually come to a terminal center -- what we call the remote access terminal centers -- and actually, without having to buy a computer or figure out how to dial up or any of those things, simply see the trading that's happening on the Addis Ababa trading floor.
我們決定在衣索比亞採取的方法是 要把整個生態系統, 或是整個貿易環境結合在一起。 這表示我們會使用一個貿易系統, 而這在一開始會引起公然反對的聲浪。 我們認為這個國家還沒有準備好要完全的電子貿易。 但同時,我們會做一件我認為全世界都沒有做過的貿易, 就是在郊區 經營類似網路咖啡廳的場所。 這樣一來, 農夫和小商人能實際的來到終端中心, 我們稱為遠端使用終端中心, 不用買電腦, 也不用弄懂要怎麼撥接或類似的事, 就可以知道在阿地斯阿貝巴(衣索比亞首都)所發生的交易。
At the same time, what's very fundamental to this market is that -- and again, an innovation that we've designed for our exchange -- is that the exchange will operate warehouses around the country, in which grade certification and warehouse receipting will be done. And in turn, we'll operate an in-house clearing system, to assure that payment is done appropriately, in the right amount and at the right time, so that basically, we create trust and integrity in the system. Obviously, we work with exchange actors, and as we're developing the exchange market itself, we're also developing the regulatory infrastructure and legal framework, the overarching legal framework for making this market work.
同時,對這市場來說相當重要, 也是我們設計這個交易所創新的點, 就是這個交易所會經營全國各地的倉庫, 使等級認證和倉庫收據得著實行。 相對的,我們會經營一個內部透明化的系統, 好確保收、付款 能按時按量的完成。 所以基本上,我們在系統內創造了信任和誠實。 很明顯地,我們和交易行為者合作, 而且在我們也在發展交易市場的同時, 我們也在發展監管的基礎設施和法律框架, 一個讓市場運作非常重要的法律框架。
So, in fact, our proclamation is going to parliament next month. What's really important is that the ECX will operate a market information system to disseminate prices in real time to farmers around the country, using VSAT technology to bring an electronic price dissemination directly to farmers. What this does is transforms, fundamentally, the farmers' relationship to the market. Whereas before the farmer used to think local -- meaning that he or she would go to the nearest local market, eight to 10 kilometers away on average, and sell whatever they happened to have, without any idea of what the price premium or anything else was -- now farmers come with knowledge of what prices are at the national market. And they start to think national, and even global. They start to make not only commercial marketing decisions, but also planting decisions, on the basis of information coming from the futures price market. And they come to the market knowing what grades their products will achieve in terms of a price premium.
事實上,下個月我們會 在國會上為這項計畫發表聲明。 真正重要的是ECX會運用VSAT科技 及時的散佈市場資訊和電子報價給國內各地的農夫, 這會完全的改變 農夫和市場的關係。 以前農夫只有當地化的思維- 就是去最近的當地市場 平均八到十公里遠, 有什麼就賣什麼, 完全不知道溢價 或其它類似的概念 是什麼。 如今他們對國際市場價格有所了解, 且開始有國際化的思想。 他們不僅開始作商業市場的決定, 也開始根據期貨市場 所提供的價格做決定。 當他們來到市場時會知道溢價的時候 他們的產品會得到什麼等級。
So all of this will transform farmers. It will also transform the way traders do business. It will stop them from doing simple, back-to-back, limited arbitrage to really thinking strategically about how to move grain across long distances from [surplus regions] to [deficit areas]. Can Ethiopia do this? It seems very ambitious. But it will create new opportunities. We believe that this initiative requires great political will, and we'll have to align the financial sector, as well as the ICT sector, and really even the underlying legal framework. We believe that the winds of change are here, and that we can do it. ECX is the market for Ethiopia's new millennium, which starts in about eight months.
所以,這一去都會改變農夫, 也會改變商人做生意的方法。 這會阻止他們接二連三的做簡單且有限的套利, 反而真正思考如何將穀物不足的地方 長途運送到過剩的地區。 衣索比亞可以做到這個嗎? 這似乎是很耗時耗力, 但這會創造新機會。 我相信這新方案需要強大的政治決心, 也需要將財政部門和資訊與通訊技術部門連結起來, 並且真實的平衡根本的法律框架。 我們相信變革之風已經來到,而且我們做的到。 ECX是衣索比亞市場的千禧年, 且在八個月後啟動。
The last parliament of our century opened with our president announcing to the country that this was the most important economic initiative for the country today. We believe that the stakes are high, but that the returns will be even greater. ECX, moreover, can become a trading platform for a pan-African market in agricultural commodities. Ethiopia's domestic market is about one billion dollars of value. And we feel that over the next five years, if Ethiopia can capture even 40 percent, just 40 percent, of the domestic market, and add just 25 percent value to that market, the value of the market doubles. Ethiopia's agricultural market is 30 percent higher than South Africa's grain production, and, in fact, Ethiopia is the second largest maize producer in Africa. So the potential is there. The will is there. The commitment is there. So we feel that we have a winning value proposition to transform farmers' choices, to grow our agriculture, and to change Africa. So, we are in the business of finding our happiness. Thank you very much.
這世紀最後一屆議會的開場白就是我們的總統 向全國宣布這是國家 最重要的新經濟方案。 我們相信風險是很高的, 但是回報會更高。 此外,ECX還能成為整個非洲市場 農產品的交易平台。 衣索比亞的國內市場約值十億美元。 我們覺得未來的五年, 如果衣索比亞能掌握40%,就是40%的國內市場, 另外只加25%的市場價格,市場價值就會乘於二。 衣索比亞的農業市場穀物產量比南非高30%, 而且,事實上, 衣索比亞的玉米產量是非洲第二大。 潛力就在這裡, 意願就在這裡, 承諾也在這裡。 我們覺得自己必定能改變農夫的選擇, 使我們的農業成長, 並且改變非洲。 因此,我們的工作就是找尋我們的快樂。 謝謝大家。
(Applause)
(掌聲)