The privatization bid for Ethiopia's biggest state-owned hotel, Ghion Hotel Enterprise, once again failed to attract buyers on the bid opening day held on Friday.  No bid documents were submitted sealed  when the box was opened in the bid hall of the Ethiopian Privatization and Public Enterprises Supervising Agency (PPESA).

According to the information obtained from the agency, bid document for the hotel was sold to interested bidders, but apparently they didn’t submit their bid offers.

The bid of other three public enterprises was also opened on the date, but only one enterprise received one interested buyer, while the other two, did not receive any bid offer at all.

The Commercial Printing Press was the only enterprise with an interested bidder. According to the bid document, Girma Gifa Wossen has offered over 60.1 million birr for the purchase of the printing enterprise, which was also up for bid on several occasions, but failed to attract investors until now.

The other state owned enterprises that did not attract interested bidders were Agricultural Mechanization Service Enterprise and Artistic Printing Enterprise.

According to Wondafrash Assefa, Public Relations Head of PPESA, the Agency has plan to put up other enterprises for bid in the near future.The head indicated that about five new enterprises, including three transport companies, will be put for sell in the coming few weeks. Enterprises which did not attract buyers during Friday’s bid session, may also be put up for sale again in an upcoming privatization bids, Wondafrash said.

Source: Capital