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Coffee exports in Ethiopia were 50% below target in the past nine months of the financial year and are expected to decrease even further.

Ethiopia had anticipated raising 1.17 billion US dollars from the export of 288,000 tons of coffee. The failure to meet targets was due to the instability of the international market claimed Kebede Chane Minister of Trade. It is expected that coffee exports will reach 70% of target by the end of the fiscal year he said.

The country exported 98,000 tons of coffee in the first nine months which amounted to 48% of target exports raising 66% of the target revenue.

The Revenue and Customs Authority in Ethiopia cautioned the businesses in Dire Dawa and Harar to handle receipts better.

Officials from the authority met with members of the business community last week and warned that businesses were not issuing receipts for all their transactions.

The government will enforce the law if businesses do not put in cash register machines and use them appropriately said federal and local officials to participants. 

The National Bank of Ethiopia has accepted Fasika Kebede as the founding president of Enat Bank. The central bank accepted the nomination last week after two previous nominees failed.

Enat Bank has finally succeeded in finding a president said Meaza Ashenafi, Chairperson of the Board of the bank.

Fasika served with the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia for 24 years after graduating from Addis Ababa University in 1981. She conducted Post Graduate Studies in the University of Wales, UK. Fasika served with the Ethiopian Red Cross Society for five years before retiring to private business.

Debub Global Bank is set to enter the banking sector in Ethiopia as the 15th private bank after receiving a license from the National bank and a trade permit from the Addis Ababa Trade Bureau at the end of the month.

The bank expects to launch operations in July with two branches in Addis Ababa and one each in Hosanna and Hawassa according to Workku Lemma President of Debub. It is currently in the process of setting up offices, seeking companies to provide IT services and CORE banking solutions in particular as well as hiring staff.

The bank will require a commencement letter from the central bank which will conduct a field inspection to affirm that it is ready to begin operations.

The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia installed CORE launching solutions introducing the upgraded, centralized, online, real time service as of last week.

In accordance with the mandate put out by the National Bank, 34 branches of CBE have managed to interface with the National Payment System with the effective migration of information on more than 1 million accounts.

The bank expects to finalize work on all of its 92 branches in Addis Ababa in the next two months and to integrate the main regional towns by the end of the current financial year according to an anonymous official at the Bank.

Tsehay Insurance Company, Ethiopia launched operations last week to become the 15th insurer to join the sector.

The company began operations at its three branches found at Piassa, Merkato, and Haya Hulet Mazoria with its main office located in Somali Terra to be operational in the near future according to Teshome Aklog, Chief Executive Officer of Tsehay.

The insurance company began selling shares at the same time as Tsehay Bank, dissolved since, with 90% of the shareholders in the bank with shares in the insurance company said Demessew Kassa, Project Manager of the company.

The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia is to open its second branch in Southern Sudan. The branch will be opened in the second largest city in South Sudan and Malakal.

The bank aims to tap into the growing business in the area according to a banker attached to the Commercial Bank branch at Juba. The bank has already sent thirteen employees to Juba and CBE has already constructed the office that will house the bank he said.

There are only three banks, two local banks Nile Commercial and Ivory and Kenyan bank Equity, currently operating in Malakal in spite of the business created by its proximity to Ethiopia and North Sudan.

Ethiopian Airlines, Ethiopia’s flag carrier, has won the “The Annual Airline Reliability Performance Award” from Bombardier Aerospace, for the second time in a row.

The airline earned the highest total dispatch reliability to place first overall in the Q-400 product category for the African and Middle Eastern Region.

The award was received by Mesin Tassew, Chief Operating Officer of Ethiopian at the annual Airline Reliability Performance Awards Gala dinner which was held in Florida, USA on the 30th of April.

Du Pont, an American Fortune 100 company, is set to expand and diversify operations in Ethiopia.

The company aims to provide what Ethiopian farmers need by providing selected seeds as its revenue in the region said Jim Borel, Vice President of Du Pont.

The company has meet with Tefera Derbew, Minister of Agriculture and is in the process of enhancing its seed production and conditioning facilities in Ethiopia for maize production explained Borel.

Textile industries in Ethiopia were urged to enhance environmental protection in their treatment of effluents by the Ethiopian Textile Industry Development Institute.

The textile industry is a significant source of green house gases and all stakeholders in the sector need to put in place mechanisms to prevent environmental pollution noted Sileshi Lemma, Director General of the Institute at an awareness raising workshop held this week.  

Textile manufacturers need to use renewable sources of energy instead of fossil fuels towards limiting the impact on the environment said Amha Bekele, Research Laboratory Director with the ETIDI.