Ethiopia's export sector generated $2.35 billion during the first ten-months of the current 2017-2018 Ethiopian fiscal year, the Ethiopian Ministry of Trade revealed on Friday.

The amount marked a $64.5 million increase compared with the corresponding period in the previous fiscal year, state affiliate Fana Broadcasting Corporate reported.

Boosting the East African country's export trade was the Ethiopian government's major economic goal as it recently decided to devalue the Ethiopian Birr (ETB) by 15 percent - a move the Ethiopian National Bank (NBE) said would boost the current fiscal year's export performance.

The ETB devaluation, effective as of October 2017, was mainly targeted to bolster the export of Ethiopia's agricultural products as price decrease in global market for agricultural products affected the country's export trade in recent years.

While agricultural products remain the largest contributor of export earnings, with $1.79 billion during the past 10-months alone, the Ethiopian government has recently revealed the addition of natural gas as one of Ethiopia's major export commodities in the near future.

The Ethiopian Ministry of Mines, Natural Gas and Petroleum in April this year revealed the East African country's plan to generate close to $1 billion on annual basis from the export of the recently discovered natural gas.

The 7 to 8 billion cubic trillion feet (TFC) of natural gas, which was recently discovered in Ethiopia's Somali regional state by the Chinese firm Poly-GCL, is also expected to increase in terms of its annual revenue in the subsequent years, according to the ministry.

(Xinhua News Agency June 10, 2018)