2merkato

Radisson Blu Hotel opened as the third international hospitality chain in Ethiopia. The hotel is situated in a nine storey building found in the Kazanchis area of Addis Ababa.

The hotel has 204 rooms, including 44 business class, 16 luxury suites and one presidential suite. On opening it offers partial restaurant, bar and café services. ‘The Signature’ bar can serve a total of 132 people at one time while a luxury French restaurant ‘Verres en Vers’ can seat 144 customers.

Ethio Telecom has reduced tariffs across zones for calls made from landlines in Ethiopia as of the 1st of January. Rates were reduced by 66.3% to 83 cents per minute during peak hours and to 0.35 cents at off peak hours, a 228% reduction.  

The move is targeted to encourage an increase in the number of subscribers to landlines in the face of falling revenue and low numbers of new subscribers for fixed line services.

Ethiopian Airlines, Ethiopia’s flag carrier, announced a joint initiative to purchase fuel with eight other African airlines. The collaborative initiative to bur fuel is expected to result in significant savings for the airlines.

The program for the nine airlines to jointly buy fuel was launched following the conclusion of the evaluation process of bids tendered by several fuel companies said The African Airlines Association.

The Ethiopian Revenue and Customs authority held talks with business people from the Merkato area, center for business activity in Ethiopia. The meeting was held at the National Lottery Administration Hall last week.

The meeting was expected to relax some tension in the Merkato business community following the drastic measures enforced by the ‘The Merkato Project’ to enforce tax compliance.