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The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia announced that it had broadened its foreign missions over the already ending fiscal year focusing on business diplomacy. Four new missions were established and one embassy was relocated, the Ministry stated.

The 6th hotel show Africa was inaugurated in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Thursday. The hotel show is aimed at connecting domestic and global travel market players and hotel operators.

Ethiopian Toll Road Enterprise said it had collected more than ETB 225 million revenue from Addis-Adama expressway, an expressway which was constructed with ETB 11 billion.

A press release by the US Embassy in Ethiopia on 20 June 2018

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced today that he will lead a delegation from the President’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa (PAC-DBIA) on a fact-finding mission to Ghana later this month. Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade Gilbert Kaplan will head the delegation on stops in Ethiopia, Kenya and Côte D’Ivoire as well as accompany Secretary Ross in Ghana. These visits provide an opportunity for the delegation to gather insight into market opportunities and challenges faced by U.S. businesses in these fast-growing economies. The PAC-DBIA will use this information to provide President Trump with reliable and actionable recommendations to deepen commercial relationships in these countries.

France Development Agency (AFD) agreed to grant Ethiopia 18 million Euros in two separate agreements. The first agreement, a 10 million Euros grant, will be used for urban institutional and infrastructure development program (UIIDP), a program which is co-financed by the World Bank and the government of Ethiopia. The UIIDP is targeted at enhancing the capacity and performance of local urban governments.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that Ethiopia and Djibouti are exerting efforts to further consolidate the existing bilateral relationship to economic integration. In a two days meeting which started on June 21 and which is held in Addis Ababa, the two countries tried to pinpoint and evaluate their achievements and failures in the process of creating economic integration. Reinforcing cross-border infrastructures, increases in the volume of trade, and consolidating the people to people relation are among other issues they picked up during the discussion.

A new group composed of five federations; the federations of Hotel, Small and Medium Enterprises, Water and Sewerage service providers and the Amhara and Addis Ababa Employers’ Federations, is certified as the New Ethiopian Employers’ Federation by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.

SMEC international PTY, an Australian based consultancy firm, concluded an ETB 250 million agreement with Ethiopia to design and supervise the 3 billion birr project of the country’s largest oil terminal. In accordance with the agreement, the firm will prepare the final design of the terminal which is to be built in Dukem, Oromia Region, administer the project, and help the Ethiopian Petroleum Supply Enterprise (EPSE) in choosing a contractor.

A new governor is assigned to the National Bank of Ethiopia. The former governor, Teklewold Atnafu, is replaced by Dr. Yinager Dessie, who was Commissioner of the National Planning Commission of Ethiopia. The measure is part of the country’s major economic reforms.

Source: Fana BC and Reuters

Ethiopian Road Authority said two projects of the Mojjo-Hawassa expressway, a project which constitutes East African Corridor- section of Trans African highway, were being constructed as per the schedule while the bidding process for the last two schedules was being finalized.