2merkato

Ethiopia is playing a significant role in developing the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa according to Sindiso Ngwenya, General Secretary of the COMESA.

The role the country is playing includes its support of activities that forge economic integration in the COMESA region, said Ngwenya following the talks he held with Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn in Addis Ababa.     

Discussions with the Ethiopia premier included means of enhancing COMESA efforts to achieve integration in the region he said.
The COMESA Secretary General has extended an invitation for Hailemariam to take part in the COMESA meeting scheduled to held in Uganda in     November.

The Federal tax structure of Ethiopia has collected 22.2 billion birr in the first quarter according to source with the Ethiopian Revenues and Customs Authority. The revenue raised from federal taxes in the first quarter is higher than the 21.5 billion birr projected by the authority for the reporting period.

The revenue collected at the federal level this quarter makes up 22% of the 101 billion birr that the authority has targeted to collect in the current financial year.

The federal taxation system includes income from customs and duties, domestic taxes and the national lottery system. The national lottery and customs contributed less than anticipated amounts of revenue according to sources.

LG Electronics is looking to expand its presence in the Ethiopian market by meeting the increasing need for air conditioning equipment said Dinir Abubaker, Country Director for the company.

The Ethiopian climate is changing and the need for air conditioning is increasing he noted at the event held to launch the new Titan series of air conditioners to the Ethiopian market at the Hilton Hotel.

The new line of air conditioners have built in voltage switch to protect the conditioners compressor from damage caused by fluctuations in electrical current that is caused by unstable power supply in the African Region explained Sangmin Lee, Vice President of LG East Africa. The air conditioner is also more power effective using 75% less power than other conditioners on the market he claimed.

The Japanese Toyota Tsusho Corporation has expressed interest in the financing and construction of the pipeline extending from Juba to Port Djibouti through Ethiopia.

The Japanese company is interested in undertaking the project expected to be launched in the second quarter of the coming year according to sources in the Japanese Embassy here in Ethiopia.

Toyota is the second company, next to an anonymous US company to express an interest in financing the infrastructural project tentatively expected to cost 3 billion US dollar.

The 18th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies is being held outside of the capital Addis Ababa in Dire Dawa for the first time. The conference will be held from the 29th of October to the 2nd of November under the theme of ‘Movements in Ethiopia/Ethiopia in Movement.’

Dire Dawa and co-host Harrar were chosen to host this years conference because the two are crossroads in the trade and migration networks and have retained their cultural and religious traditions without sacrificing modernity.

The conference was organized as a collaborative effort by the Institute of Ethiopian Studies and the French Center of Ethiopian Studies and is primarily sponsored by the French Embassy in Ethiopia.

The Ashegoda Wind Farm will be completed by the middle of 2013 announced the Vergnet Groupe, the French company handling the construction of the first Ethiopian wind farm.

The project expected to produce 120 Mega Watts when completed is primarily being financed largely by the French Development Agency and French financier BNP Paribas. It is estimated that the project will cost 200 million Euros up to completion.

It is to be remembered that Vergnet secured the Engineering Procurement Commissioning contract for the Ashegoda project from the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation four years ago.

Ethiopian Airlines has entered in an agreement with Lufthansa Technik for technical support for the airline’s Boeing 787 fleet.
The Total Component Support agreement for the latest aircraft in the Ethiopia long haul fleet will be effective for the coming ten years.

Lufthansa has taken on the role of supporting the airline using its pool of material in Germany starting from when Ethiopian took charge of the plane in August. The contractual agreement includes repair and logistics for the Dreamliner fleet comprising the three that airline is already operating and the seven on order.

Lufthansa Technik is already engaged in helping Ethiopian Airlines with optimizing the support it gets from the Maintenance Repair and Overhaul sector as well as providing component support for the Bombardier Q 400 aircraft and the MD 11.

Petrotrans, the Honk Kong based petroleum company is seeking arbitration for the termination of its gas fields development project by the Ethiopian Ministry of Mines according to sources.

The company is in the process of preparing for a legal suit at the International Arbitration Court in Geneva said the sources.

It is to be remembered that the Ministry of Mines revoked the development agreement signed with the agreement last July claiming that it had failed to execute the project according to the agreed upon schedule.

The company had been unable to initiate actual exploratory activities thus breaching its agreement with the Ethiopian government according to the termination notice sent by Sinkenesh Ejigu, Minister of Mines.

An international conference on coffee is to be held in Ethiopia according to the Ethiopian Coffee Exporters Association. The conference is to be held on the 8th and the 9th of November under the theme of: ‘Ethiopian Coffee Export Conference: Strengthening the Legacy of Our Coffee’.

It is expected that the conference will increase the status of Ethiopian coffee on the international market by promoting an exchange of information and sharing the vision for the sector according to Getachew Admas, Public Relations Officer with the association.

The conference also aims to discuss the opportunities and challenges that could potential encounter the coffee sector in the coming years as well as helping with meeting the goals for enhancing the export of coffee from Ethiopia in terms of volume, quality and foreign currency earning said Getachew.

Ethiopian exports have dropped by 7% in the first quarter of the fiscal year according to the Ministry Trade. The total revenue earned from exports in the first quarter of the financial year was just 699.1 million US dollars.

The revenue from exports decreased due to lower demand for coffee and oil seeds on the international market according to the ministry.

Coffee exports to the international market raised a revenue of 199.3 million US dollars in the first quarter which ended in Oct. 10. The revenue earned from coffee was lower than the 201.9 million US dollars  earned by the nation over the same period a year earlier said the MoT.