The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) has approved a 600 million and 370 million Ethiopian Birr loan requests of Raya and Habesha breweries respectively.

Raya Brewery is planning to erect a brewery plant with an annual production capacity of 300,000hl, in Bohera Mountain, South of Maichew, 667km from Addis Abeba.

Raya has managed to raise 248 million Birr from the sale of shares over the past two years; 30pc of these shares were sold to BGI Ethiopia and 22percent to Dawit Gebre-Egziabher, a businessman.

Raya submitted its loan request with documents including agreements with contractors and detailed feasibility studies to CBE six months ago.

“As the loan requested is a huge amount and the venture is green, the feasibility study has been revised repeatedly,” Public Relations office of the CBE said to Fortune in a written statement.

“Nevertheless, from the date of submission of the final documents required from their side, the loan process was finalized within a month,” the statement added, speaking for  both Raya and Habesha breweries.

Similarly, Habesha is errecting a brewery with the capacity to produce 500,000hl of beer a year, in Debrebran town, 120km north of Addis Abeba, at a cost of 631 million Br. The CBE approved 370 million birr of Habesha's 470 million Birr laon request, according to Zewdu Negate, general manager of Habesha Brewery.

Habesha has an authorized capital of 250 million Birr.

Source: Fortune