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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.

Ethiopian Roads Authority awarded a 1.2 billion Ethiopian birr road construction project to Chines Company, Sino Hydro Corporation Limited.

The contract for the 90 KM long road upgrade project from Bahir Dar to Zema Wenze was signed on September 9, 2013 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Brookside Dairy, a Kenya based milk processing and marketing company is eyeing to acquire 20 percent share in Ethiopia's Elemtu Milk Integrated Industry, Fortune reported.

Elemtu is developing a milk processing plant in the outskirts of the capital, Addis Ababa at a cost of 60 million Ethiopian birr.

The Addis Ababa Chamber of Commerce and Sectoral Associations (AACCSA) is to establish a Corporate Governance Institute, that seek to govern conducts of private businesses in Ethiopia.

Getachew Regassa, secretary general of the AACCSA, told journalists that the institute will be responsible in regulating volunteer business entities of the country based on a set of code of conducts.

The Ethiopian Government and Icelandic International Development Agency (ICEIDA) signed a partnership agreement for geothermal surface exploration and capacity building for geothermal development.

The agreement is signed as part of the ICEIDA/NDF Geothermal Exploration Project, according to information obtained from ICEIDA website.