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George Shoe Corporation, a Taiwanese company, is planning to establish three shoe manufacturing plants in Ethiopia, Fortune reported.

The Plants which will be constructed in Addis Ababa, Adama and Mojjo towns will cost around US$ 50 million, according to the report.

Ethiopia has earned over three billion US dollars revenue from foreign trade during the concluded Ethiopian Fiscal Year, the Ministry of Trade said.

Public relation director with the Ministry, Amakele Yimam told Ethiopian News Agency that the country has secured the stated sum from export of over 9.6 tons of export items. He said coffee, chat, live animals, vegetables and fruits, flowers, food and beverage, tea, cereals, oil seeds, spices, honey and foot wear are among the products exported during the reported period.

The director said the past year's performance has exceeded the previous year revenue by US$59.8 million. Ethiopia exports its produce to 133 countries including, Somalia, China, Germany, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland and U.S.A.

Source: Ethiopian News Agency

Ethio Telecom has started offering its closed user group service (CUG), allowing GSM mobile telephone subscribers to make calls and receive calls from members within the group, on both post-paid and prepaid modes, effective August 18, 2013.

Previously, the CUG service was only available on a post-paid basis and outgoing call service would be terminated when the airtime quota is exceeded and customers, however, customers could still take incoming calls.

The new hybrid system prevents service interruption, by allowing customers to top up a post-paid account when the airtime balance is depleted.

“The CUG, which enables calls among an institution’s workers, has so many benefits for organizations. The price is less compared to normal ethio telecom fees,” Abdurahim Ahmed, ethio telecom’s corporate communications director, told Fortune.

“When service is halted, it created obstacles in an institutions’ daily activities and ethio telecom’s revenue was highly affected,” he stated. “This solution allows customers to receive reliable services. Ethio telecom’s revenues will not be determined solely by the post-paid service.” Abdurahim added.

Ethio Telecom launched the  closed user group service a year ago.

Source: Fortune

Amhara Regional State of Ethiopia has earned over 933.6 million Ethiopian birr  from tourists who visited natural, historic and religious sites in the State during the concluded Ethiopian Fiscal Year, the State culture, Tourism and Parks Bureau said.

Wagaw Haile, Heritage Protection and Tourism Development office with the bureau, told Ethiopian News Agency over the weekend that over 6.7 million tourists visited historic and religious sites in the State.

Revenue from tourism and the number of tourists visited the sites increased by over 500.1 million birr and 4.4 million respectively, Wagaw said. He attributed the success for infrastructure development and promotion works. The tourism sector has created jobs for 35,000 residents, Wagaw added.

The Semien Mountains National Park, the castles of King Fasiledes, the Rock Hewn Churches of Lalibela and the Monasteries in Lake Tana are major toursis attractions in Amhara Regional State.

Source: Walta Information Center

H&M Hennes & Mauritz AB, a Swedish multinational retail-clothing company, is considering to produce clothing in Ethiopia.

H&M mainly relies on Bangladesh for clothes production. One supplier says H&M is looking to source one million garments a month from Ethiopia, according to the report of Wall Street Journal.

A spokeswoman said H&M has placed trial orders with Ethiopian suppliers and that large-scale production is expected to begin as early as this fall.

"As a growing global company we have to look at how we guarantee that we have the capacity to deliver products to all our stores where we have a rapid pace of expansion," H&M spokeswoman Camilla Emilsson-Falk said. "We are doing that by increasing production in our existing production areas and also by looking at new ones."

The Ethiopian government has said it wants to revitalize its textile and garment industry, and has set a target of $1 billion in textile exports by 2016.

"Ethiopia not only gives infrastructure support but financial support," said Rajeev Arora, executive director of the African Cotton and Textiles Industries Federation. He cited competitive interest rates, cheap land and labor, and tax breaks from the government as key incentives leading to extraordinary rates of foreign investment over the past five years.

Ethiopia's textile and apparel exports totaled about $99 million for the 12 months ended in June, up 17% from the prior year, according to Fassil Tadesse, president of the Ethiopian Textile and Garment Manufacturers Association.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

The Ethiopian Ministry of Industry and , Eshet Engineering Ltd, an Israel based company formed a company through a joint venture to establish an industrial park in Kombolcha town, Amhara Regional state of Ethiopia, Capital reported.

The Kombolcha industrial park will be constructed on 1,000 hectare plot to host prioritized export-oriented sectors, such as textile and garment, leather and leather products, and agro-industries.

The Ethiopian Ministry of Industry will own 5 percent Eshet will own the remaining share of the industrial park, according to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed on August 6, 2013 by  Sisay Gemechu, State Minister of MoI responsible for the industry sector in the Ministry, and representatives of Eshet Engineering Ltd.

The MoI will provide the plot at its own cost, relocate and compensate settlers on the land, provide infrastructure for the area such as electricity, telecom and water supply, while Eshet will cover all the costs related to design and construction of the industrial park.

Eshet Engineering Ltd. is a design and consulting company established in 1987 by Doron Oz, a civil engineer.

Source: Capital

Hikma, a Jordanian pharmaceuticals company, has formed a joint venture with Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi's MIDROC Group to manufacture, market and distribute pharmaceutical products in Ethiopia, Reuters reported.

The two groups will contribute up to US$22.3 million each to create the joint venture, HikmaCure.

Ethiopian Postal Service, state owned enterprise (EPSE) announced 210.8 million Ethiopian birr earning in the concluded Ethiopian Fiscal Year.

Ziyin Gedlu, public relations head with the Ethiopian Postal Service told Walta Information Center, that the revenue earned in the reported period exceeds that of the previous year by 30 per cent.

The Addis Ababa City Administration's Credit & Small Enterprises Development Agency and Addis Credit and Saving S.C are to jointly establish a construction machinery rental enterprise, Fortune reported.

The new enterprise under formation with 500 million Ethiopian birr capital is intended to lease machinery to the city's micro & small enterprises.

Ethiopian Ministry of Culture & Tourism secured a US$200,000 fund from the European Union to assist the establishment of the Ethiopian Tourism Enterprise and Tourism Transformation Council.  

The financing will be used to hire consultants to study the design and organizational structure of the two entities, Fortune reported.