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The Ethiopian Airlines said it was planning to increase its market share in Africa by ten folds in 2025 by raising the quality of its service and number of its aircraft.

Tewolde Gebre-Mariam, CEO of the airlines, said that Ethiopian would add 70 modern, fuel-saving aircraft to its fleet.

According to Tewolde, Ethiopian's annual income has now reached 1.6 billion dollars and the company was working to raise it to 10 billion dollars. The airline’s annual number of passengers is currently over three million, three times greater than the number of passengers over the last five years.

Chinese shoe factories told Prime Minister Meles Zenawi on Friday that they were interested in investing in Ethiopia. Zan Guha Rang, president of Hu Han Zangur, a shoe factory producing 15 million pairs of shoes a year, said, that it was looking for markets in Africa, particularly in Ethiopia.

The Prime Minister, during his five-day visit to china, assured the Chinese investors that Ethiopia would support prospective Chinese investors. Representatives of various Chinese companies spoke with the Prime Minister about their intentions to invest in Ethiopia.

VAT registered businesses throughout Ethiopia are going to start using cash register machines like those in Addis Ababa.

Officials in the Tigray Regional State started this week enforcing the use of cash registration machines the Ethiopian Revenue and Customs Authority (ERCA) said. The Amhara, Oromia and SNNP regional states are preparing to begin using the system.

The Central Statistical Agency said this week that Ethiopia’s inflation rate climbed to 39.2 percent in July from a year earlier.

Inflation accelerated from 38.1 percent in June, according to the agency. Food prices increased by 47.4 percent in July after rising 45.3 percent in the previous month, while the cost of non-food items fell from 27.9 percent to 27.8 percent, it said.