2merkato

Castel Winery is expected to bottle wine for export form its vineyard in Zeway early next year. The French company is the first foreign winery in Ethiopia after the socialist regime.

The French wine maker has installed 28, 430 hectolitre, Inox tankers for the production of its first bottles of wine according to Robel Seido, Sales and Marketing Manager at Castel.

The wines will be bottled over the next 3-6 months and will be available to the market shortly thereafter said Seido. The first wines to reach the market are expected to be white wine he added.

Awash Insurance has announced 18 million birr in revenue in the first quarter of the current fiscal year. The Ethiopian insurers paid out 69 million birr in claims which is 19 million birr more than the same period last year.

Awash Insurance was able to sale 203 million birr worth of insurance policies over the last year exhibiting a 46% increase from the previous year according to Kenea Daba, head of the Awash board.

The Southern Sudanese Embassy announced that it issues approximately 100 visas to Ethiopian businesspersons conducting business in Juba. The number of business travelers has increased since Southern Sudanese Independence Day said
David Dang Kong, deputy head of mission with South Sudan embassy.

Southern Sudan gives priority to Ethiopian business aiming to do business in Juba especially in view of the large Ethiopian community residing in Southern Sudan according to Kong.

The 1.5 billion US dollar telecom network installed by ZTE (Chinese telecom) is being audited by an anonymous international firm. The ground breaking network audit will determine how well the new network meets international standards claim sources.

The firm, which was contracted some months ago, will complete its test in the next two or three months say sources. The deal was not advertised for managerial reasons according to the sources.