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Gulf Air, the national carrier of the Kingdom Bahrain, has appointed Mr. Salah AlShawosh as the airline’s country manager to the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. Mr. AlShawosh, a Bahraini national, was previously based in India where he held the position of airport manager in Bombay for six years.

The Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs together with the Ministry of Urban Development & Construction, and  Commercial Bank of Ethiopia , are finalizing a new housing registration strategy for Ethiopian expats.

The move was following problems during the registration period which ran from 12-23 August, 2013 marked by numerous challenges, such as lack of guidelines to identify eligible expats for the housing program.

Ethiopia's economy is to grow 7 percent a year over the next three to five years, the World Bank forcasted. The growth is below its average of the last decade, and to push that rate higher, the government needs to change policy to encourage private investment, the Bank said.

"We still think growth could be robust - in the order of 7 percent in the medium term would not be unexpected," said Lars Christian Moller, the bank's lead economist in Ethiopia, in an interview with Reuters.

Ethiopia is to delay the implementation date of the universal health insurance law for six months which was scheduled to be started this August. 
The delay was attributed to lagging behind in setting up legal frameworks and operational manuals, and staffing, Fortune reported quoting an expert with the Ethiopian Health Insurance Agency.

The postponement has been communicated to all public institutions in a circular two weeks ago.

Ethiopia's Nib Bank, together with its sister company, Nib Insurance has awarded China Railway Engineering Group for construction of a 35 storey headquarters building.  
China Railway Engineering Group is already involved in several projects in Ethiopia, prominently the Ethio-Djibouti railway construction project.

The Ethiopian Privatization and Public Enterprises Agency is planning to transfer 20 state owned enterprises to the private sector in the current Ethiopian Fiscal Year, Fortune reported.

The Agency is re-tendering Ghion Hotel, Agricultural Mechanization Services Enterprise, Transport Construction Design S.C, Artistic Printing Enterprise, and Weyra Transport S.C.

Ethiopia's Awash Wine S.C announced that it has made over 90 million Ethiopian birr profit before tax in the concluded fiscal year. Rezene Hailu CEO of Awash Wine S.C made the announcement during the company's annual employees day.

Rezene said on the occasion that the company has earned 90.84 million birr profit before tax from the 6.4 million liters of wine produced in the budget year. The company’s profit before tax was only 1.5 million birr 15 years ago, he noted.

The Ethiopian Ministry of Mines and Energy said, over 8.6 million liters of ethanol has been blended with gasoline and supplied to local market over the concluded Ethiopian Fiscal Year.

Public relation and communication Director with the Ministry, Bizuneh Tolcha told Ethiopian News Agency that supply of increasing amount of ethanol blended gasoline has enabled the country to save US$7.6 million.

The Belarusian Minsk Motor Plant shipped the first batch of products to Ethiopia, Belarusian Telegraph Agency (elTA) reported.

“We shipped 71 engines to this market where they will be used to re-equip ZiL 130/131 and GAZ-66 vehicles. There are good prospects to expand deliveries to this new market. We have stepped up our efforts to explore and penetrate the markets of Africa, Latin America and Asia. These markets are very promising for us. We have already delivered the first batch of products to Myanmar, Burkina Faso, the Dominican Republic and Mexico,” the company said.

Ethiopia's Meta Abo Brewery S.C. has launched a non-alcoholic malt drink to venture into the non-alcoholic beverage market.

A particular segment of the society the company identified as being a potential customer base is the Muslim population of Ethiopia, which because of its religious drink is prohibited from drinking alcoholic drinks.