2merkato

The Ethiopian Commodity Exchange was only able to attract a single bidder for the seat it offered for bid. The seat was put on sale through the exchange after Ural Industries to relinquish its seat on the ECX.

The only interested bidder for the sea was Dejen Industrial plc which made an offer of 1.3 million birr for the seat on the exchange.

It is to be remembered that the trade volume of the exchange reached 21 billion birr in the last financial year while its trading volume increased to 601,000 tons announced the ECX.

The Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics Enterprise is undertaking an expansion project on Mojo Dry Port at an estimated cost of 718 million Birr. The project, already launched was officially announced this week in Addis Ababa.

The expansion project includes plans to construct an international standard containers’ terminal on 8.6 hectares of land according to Getaneh Abate,  Modjo Branch Director.    The project is designed to have three phases that will help to upgrade the dry port service to a higher level he added.

Currently six projects of the first phase are well in progress, all of which are to be constructed by the Federal Water Works Construction Enterprise according to Getaneh.

The Ethiopian Ministry of Urban Development and Construction issued a detailed implementation strategy for the proper enactment of the land lease proclamation on December 26, 2012.

The strategic plan helps with the proper implementation of the proclamation according to Israel Tesfaye, Head of the Ministry’s Land Development and Administration Bureau.

The plan aims at addressing issues including land development, rehabilitation and transfer as well as cadastral information management in a demarcated manner in the industrial zones. The implementation strategies are also expected to help embrace all zones within the lease system.

Kaizen, Ethiopia organized a seminar last Thursday on how to implement the philosophy of Kaizen in the country. The seminar was held at the Ethiopia Hotel.     

The Ethiopian Kaizen organized the seminar for those organization engaged in the areas of public relations and media with the aim of the promotion and dissemination of the concepts of Kaizen to a wider audience.

Ethiopian Airlines is committed to developing its human resources in order to maintain its leading role in the aviation industry, according to Tewolde Gebre-Mariam, Chief Executive of the airline.

The airline is concentrating on human resource development in order to address the shortage of skilled human power for itself and other airlines.

Ethiopian has been concentrating on its human resource development for the last ten years but was limited because of the training capacity of its aviation academy which could only train 200 people a year. The airline is now able to train 1,000 people according to its current capabilities but this is still not enough to meet domestic and international demands for personnel which has led the airline to revise its human resource development plan with a view towards increasing the number of people it can train said Tewolde.

Addis Bank announced 7.81 Million birr in profits in its first year of operations. The bank’s unique achievement was mainly due to income earned through indirectly channeling funds between borrowers and lenders as well as other non-interest bearing activities said Hailu Alemu, president of the Bank speaking at the Bank’s general assembly, held at Kokeb Building.

The Bank was also able to significantly reduce its expenses over the fiscal year. He added.

“This incredible result was recorded because of two reasons, which are integrity-based service and cost controlling mechanisms,” said Hailu.

The Ethiopian Ministry of Industry has made 10 plots of land available for eight domestic and international investors in the manufacturing sector who have requested land to build industrial zones.

These plots are a part of the 13 reclaimed by the Addis Ababa City Administration for failing to properly develop them.
The plots each cover 2, 800 meter squares and are found in the Akaki Kality and Mekanisa Lebu districts.

The companies granted the land are involved in the manufacture of garments, shoes, metal and agro processing sectors. 

Awash Winery, Ethiopia has attracted a bid higher than the starting price set by the Privatization and Public Enterprises Supervising Agency in the round of bids opened last week. The floor process set by the PPESA for Awash was 438,604,756 birr.

Blue Nile plc offered 458, 400,000 for the publicly owned winery which was much lower than the 277.4 million birr offered by Bosberi plc said Sileshi Tujji, Corporate Communications Expert with the PPESA.

The proposal presented by Blue Nile stipulated that it will pay 35% upfront and the rest over five years, Bosberi on the other hand offered to pay 30% before signing and the remainder at the handover.

The National Bank of Ethiopia is preparing to introduce a standardized check system which will require banks across the country to use the same type of checks with enhanced security features, starting from January 2013.

The new checks to be printed under the control of the NBE are expected to be coded so as to make them more difficult to forge according to a source. It is expected that banks will cover the cost of the new checks to be printed electronically and will be differentiated for the different banks by the bank logos that will be placed on them said the source.

The details of how the new checks will go into operation are yet to be divulged although the central bank is expected to offer trainings soon added the source.

Habesha Construction Materials and Development Share Company, Ethiopia announced a profit of 5 million birr for the four months that it has been in operation, May-June.

The company was able to gross 16.6 million birr for the four months it has been in operation in spite of several it faced including the challenge of a financial sector reluctant to finance real estate projects, problems with acquiring land, and bureaucratic issues as well as shareholders defaulting on paying on contributions noted the report represented to the general assembly by the board of directors. 

The actual revenue earned by the company from constructions erected on the land it has acquired was just 3.3 million birr while it earned 13.3 million birr from joint ventures. The company spent 6.9 million birr over the last year enabling it retain 7.8 million before taxes making up 25 percent of its current paid up capital.