1. Product Description: A cotton gin plant is a service provider which does not have final products for consumption. Its products are lint cotton and cotton seeds which are intermediate products ready as raw materials for textile and oil mill industries respectively. Hence the processing of cotton starts at the gin which separates the line from the seed. The proportion of lint cotton and cotton seed is 65 and 35 percent respectively.
2. Rationale: The cotton ginning is a process by which cotton fiber is separated from the cotton seed. By doing so, the gin facilitates the marketing and transporting of lint cotton and cotton seed. Lint cotton and cotton seed and used as raw materials in different set of industries. Transporting raw or seeded cotton will be cumbersome and expensive to the textile industries. The same is true for oil mill industries. Hence separating the fiber form the seed will enable to transport the cotton lint to textile industry and cotton seed to oil mill industry. For export markets, ginning will reduce transport or fright cost tremendously.
3. Market potential: The cotton gin is where cotton fiber is separated from cotton seed. This is a very important function in facilitating the marketing and transporting of lint cotton and cotton seed separately to their desired destinations. Hence cotton gin is an integral part of cotton production. As long as there is a cotton production there will be a compatible demand for cotton gin capacity.
4. Source of Raw Material: Cotton gin requires seeded cotton as raw materials. Raw or seeded cotton produced by cotton farms in the region will be supplied to the gin. The gin capacity should be designed as compatible to the regional cotton production volume. Metallic strapping tapes and jute bag will also be required as packing materials.
5. Production process and Technology: The processing of cotton starts at the gin, a machine which separates the lint from the seed. Cotton seeds are dried artificially be for ginning starts. The first steps in the ginning process is vacuumed the cotton into tubes that carry it to a dryer to reduce moisture and improve the fiber quality. Then it runs through cleaning equipment to remove the immature bolls, leaf trash, sticks and other foreign matter. The fiber is separated form the seed either with saw gins or roller gins depending on the staple length of the cotton. The lint then it passed through another series of pipes to a press where it is compressed into bales, banded with steel straps, wrapped for protection and ready for shipment to its destination.
6. Investment Cost Estimate: Establishment of cotton gin requires buildings for processing house, ginnery equipment such as roller gins and saw gins, power house and storage which many cost about 20-25 million birr depending on the capacity and technology types.
7. Benefits: Cotton gin increases the quality of lint cotton. It also facilitates the marketing and transporting of lint and seed cotton. It also crates income for employees in the form of wage and salary, profit for the investors and revenue for the regional government.
8. Location: Depending on the development and location of cotton farms. Bahir Dar and Gondar could be ideal sites for cotton gin plant establishment.