2merkato

Pepsi Co, INC. and USAID are collaborating in a 10 million US dollars effort to supply locally manufactured nutritional ready to use Supplementary food products (RUSF) to combat malnourishment in children in Ethiopia.

The Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Health, the Agricultural Transformation Agency, Pepsi Co., the WFP and USAID was signed in early May.

The partnership named Enterprise EthioPea is targeted to aid 10,000 farmers in Ethiopia to increase chickpea yields to produce a local based product that can feed 40,000 children.

The Metal Engineering Corporation the Privatization and Public Enterprises Agency of Ethiopia signed an agreement to construct five fertilizer factories at a total cost of 55 billion birr. The agreement was signed by Beyene Gebre-Meskel, Director General of PPESA and Col. Mulu Wolde-Gabriel Project management Deputy Director with Metal Engineering.

The agreement will allow for the construction of five urea and three Dap fertilizer plants and one coal factory said Col. Mulu. The construction will be completed within three years with the Urea factories being launched first and the others to be established according to a schedule said Beyene.

Belayab Enterprise plc inaugurated a new car assembly plant in Ethiopia in the presence of several dignitaries and notable guests.

The factory is located on 30,000m2 and has the potential capacity to assemble 18 cars a day in three work shifts. It is expected to create employment opportunities for 200 people and will create more jobs when it enters a full production stage.

The automobiles to be assembled at the plant will be station wagons and single and double cabin pickup produced by Zhougzhou Nissan Automobile and Sedan Automobiles under FEW which is said to have a paid capital of over 100 million birr.

The Endowment Fund for Rehabilitation of Tigray is building the first PVC resin plant in Ethiopia with a capital investment of seven billion birr. The plant will manufacture other industrial chemicals as well as PVC resin.

The plant will be constructed in Tigray Regional State near on a 48 hectare plot of land which has large deposits of limestone. It is expected that the plant will have the potential production capacity of 60,000 tons employing a method of production that is known as the limestone to calcium carbide to acetylene route.

EFFORT floated the first tender for the plant a year ago drawing interest from international bidders but cancelled the bid before floating another bid last week for the consultancy service to execute the project.

Textile industries in Ethiopia were urged to enhance environmental protection in their treatment of effluents by the Ethiopian Textile Industry Development Institute.

The textile industry is a significant source of green house gases and all stakeholders in the sector need to put in place mechanisms to prevent environmental pollution noted Sileshi Lemma, Director General of the Institute at an awareness raising workshop held this week.  

Textile manufacturers need to use renewable sources of energy instead of fossil fuels towards limiting the impact on the environment said Amha Bekele, Research Laboratory Director with the ETIDI.