2merkato

The Council of Ministers, Ethiopia endorsed 137.8 billion birr as the federal budget for the coming fiscal year. The budget is expected to cover government expenditure including a range of projects as well as to subsidy regional states according to the formula put in place by the House of Federation.

The Cabinet came to the decision after holding in depth discussions said the statement from the Office of the Prime Minister.

The budget establishes 26.8 billion birr of the total sum for the regular budget while 54.4 billion birr is assigned for the capital budget.

British Midland International is to suspend its flight between Heathrow and Bole International Airport, Ethiopia as of the 11th of June.

The last flight to travel from Heathrow to Bole will be on Sunday 10th of June with the return flight scheduled for Monday 11th June said the press release from the airline.

BMI notified ticket agents of the suspension on the 25th of May with travel agents told to accommodate passengers on alternative flights for flight scheduled before June 10-11 or to give full refunds it was learned.

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.