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Ethiopia launched a Climate Resilient Green Economy Facility that is expected to equip the nation with a credible instrument meeting international fiduciary standard and requirements for Measuring, Reporting and Verification.

The launch presided by Ahmed Shide, State Minister for Finance and Economic Development was attended by government officials, developmental partners and UN agencies.

The facility is expected to support a strategic approach to climate policy and offer technical and financial support to issues related to climate change reducing the cost and duplication associated with a project centered approach said Ahmed.

The Ethiopian Commodity Exchange Authority is prepared to establish three branch offices in the regional cities of Gondar, Jimma and Harrar in the current fiscal year.

The branch offices will be in close proximity to warehouses in regional areas that are operated by the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange with the aim of assisting supervision by the management in Addis Ababa.

The plans to construct the three branches were developed in the previous financial year through a mandate given to the exchange as part of the proclamation that established the authority.

The Ethiopian Revenues and Customs Authority is to launch a toll free call center worth 3.4 million birr to be based in the authority’s headquarters.

The call center is expected to transform the process of tax collection and administration. The call center installed by Tanzanian Techno Brian will be able to entertain 30 calls at the same time.

The authority has trained a dozen people, each specializing in specific tax issues to answer inquiries raised by tax payers who call in.

Ethiopia is to invite international consultants to perform a study to facilitate the transformation of the newly corporate Ethiopian Shipping Lines and Logistics Service Enterprise.

The government has already prepared the bid documents and the Term of Reference to be made public in three weeks according to sources.

The study is expected to strengthen the management of the new enterprise to achieve a higher level of competence said the sources.

Ethiopia was placed in the bottom five countries on the World Wide Web Foundation’s Web Index according to a survey which ranked 61 countries on a range of criteria including the number of people online and the amount of useful content available.

The Index measures the economic, political and social impact the Internet has made on the countries.

The survey was intended to fill a need for uniform and publicly available date comparing countries and identifying areas for improvement according to Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web.

The most basic question asked if people were actually connected and if they had hardware to access the web he said.

Ethiopia Airlines plans to add 14 more new aircraft to its fleet this year as part of efforts to increase revenues by five fold in 2025 according to Tewolde Gebremariam, Chief Executive of the airline.

The company is an a phase of ‘fast growth’ targeting annual sales of 10 billion US dollars by the end of its Vision 2025 plan, which also entails increasing its fleet to 120 aircraft said Tewolde.

The airline is committed to re-investing profits in financing infrastructural development and in building a new fleet which means considerable investment he said.

The Ethiopian Airlines Aviation Academy graduated 12 pilots, 60 flight attendants and 125 aviation maintenance technicians last week.

The Academy contributes significantly to the success of the airline by preparing trained manpower in all sectors said Tewolde Gebremariam, Chief Executive of the airline speaking on the occasion.

Ethiopian Airlines expects to employ 17 thousand personnel by the year 2025 and most of these employees will be graduates for the Aviation Academy he said.

Operators in the tour and travel sector in Ethiopia protested against the revocation of duty free privileges enacted by the Ethiopian Revenues and Customs Authority.

The association representing Tour and Travel companies said the decision to revoke the duty free status of vehicles imported by players in the sector was unfair and requested an intervention from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism to mediate the situation.

ERCA reached the decision because most of the vehicles imported by Tour and Travel companies are not being used for the purposes intended according to a letter signed by Gebrewahid Gebregiorgis, Deputy Director of the tax authority.

Yara International has awarded the 2012 Yara Prize to Dr. Eleni Gabremadhin, former CEO of the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange.

Dr. Eleni has been selected by the committee for her visionary leadership in managing the process to establish a functioning market for agricultural produce as the founder and chief Executive of the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange.

The Yara Prize Committee selected Dr. Eleni and Dr. Agnes Kalibata, Rwandese Minister for Agriculture and Animal resources for their work on ground breaking sectors in the African Green Revolution and contributing to effective public policies to support agricultural development and for profound innovation in agricultural markets.

The Ethiopian Airlines office in Muscat is processing Ethiopian Visa requests for Omani nationals. The airline expects that it will attract more passengers from the Sultanate to visit Ethiopia for tourism purposes by allowing them to apply for visa’s through its office.

The visa application process will be facilitated within ten working days from the time the documents are initially submitted and the actual visa will be stamped into travel documents on arrival in Ethiopia it was noted.

Many Omani nationals who would like to visit Ethiopia for tourism purposes are unable to do so because Ethiopia does not have an Embassy in Oman to facilitate visa requests explained Sami Muctar, Country Manager for Ethiopian Airlines in Oman.