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Ethiopia’s newly formed accreditation office, the Ethiopian National Accreditation Office, has received applications from five laboratories in Addis Ababa. ENAO will evaluate the laboratories and assess if they are able to meet the standards set by it.

ENAO accreditation means third party attestation that a laboratory has demonstrable competence to carry out its task said Genet Gebremedhin, Accreditation Director with ENAO.

In the past Ethiopian laboratories had to receive accreditation from international agencies from countries such as Germany and South Africa at a great deal of expense.

The Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) announced it will further strengthen the warehouse receipt financing scheme during the opening of the Warehouse Receipt System for Inclusive Agricultural Finance Symposium.

The scheme makes farmers eligible for bank loan using their Warehouse Receipt issued by the Exchange for commodities stored in ECX warehouses as collateral.

ECX Chief Executive Officer, Eleni Gebre-Medhin, told participants at the Warehouse Receipt Systems for Inclusive Agricultural Finance Symposium, organized jointly by ECX and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), amount exceeding 1.5 million USD warehouse receipt financing service was made available to framers last year. The scheme has considerably assisted smallholder farmers who would have no choice but to sell produce at low prices.

Ethiopian Airlines, Ethiopia’s flag carrier, will take delivery of the second lot of Bombardier Q400 Next Gen airplane in the last quarter of 2012 it was learned.

The aircraft are expected to arrive between September and December said Esete Yeshitla, Acting Public Relations and Publications Manager with the airline.

The five remaining planes have been upgraded with bigger baggage compartments, seven business class seats, two lavatories and spacious overhead compartments and the ability to furnish hot meals. 

Ethiopia’s year on year inflation rate has dropped for a third month in a row compared to 29.9 pc in April to 25.5 pc in May owing to the ease in food prices, according to the Central Statistics Agency on Tuesday. It has fallen from 36.3 pc in February.

Food inflation declined to 29.2 pc in May from 36 pc in April while non-food inflation remains fixed at 19.6 pc, the Central Statistics Agency said.

Many of the poorest African countries including Ethiopia have been affected by upsurge of oil prices and poor crop harvest which in turn induced double digit inflation rates.

Source: Reuters