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Ultimate Plan Private Limited Company and UK firm Aedas won the bid for an architectural design re-tender for the mega conference hall for the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

The conference hall, with an expected capacity of 13,000 seats, will be constructed at the Ethiopian Orthodox Church Patriarch’s palace in Arada district. The hall is planned to be powered by solar energy and will host outside facilities such as access roads, footpaths and landscaping.

Ethiopian Airlines, Ethiopia’s flag carrier, will be the first airline in Africa to operate the 787 Boeing Dreamliner according to Tewolde Gebremariam, Chief Executive of Ethiopian.

Tewolde took a tour of the first Dreamliner expected to arrive later this year when in Seattle to discuss the delivery with Boeing executives in Seattle according to a statement made by the airline.

Tewolde met with Jim Albaugh, President and Chief Executive of Commercial Airplanes as well as Larry Loftis Vice President and General Manager of the 787 and other program managers to discuss the airlines first delivery and received an update on the Dreamliner program and production explained the statement.

Cotton growers in Ethiopia called for the establishment of a federal authority designated to address the industry at a consultative meeting with the representatives from the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research and the ministries of Agriculture and Industry.

Their proposal was supported by representative from the textile factories, agriculture experts, entomologists, chemical and pesticide companies.

The need for a designated federal authority is due to complaints that the Ministry of Agriculture bureau designed to handle agriculture investment has been unable to address the issues affecting the industry.

The Addis Ababa Abattoirs Enterprise, Ethiopia is planning to move the Kera abattoir from Kirkos District to a new plant in Akaki Kaliti District. The announcement was made last week inviting bidding for consultant services to undertake a feasibility study and operational planning study for relocation.

The bid document explains that the move is designed to facilitate the improvement and modernization of the slaughtering services offered by the abattoir to meet the growing demand.

The move anticipated for the past 15 years will be funded by a 900 million birr soft loan from the Agence Francaise de Developpement.

Ethiopia is to introduce a new health insurance program ratified by the House of People’s Representatives last summer. The new program will include organizations which already provide health insurance for their employees.

Permanent employees of private, governmental and non governmental organizations will contribute 3% of their salary to take part in the new health insurance program. Although organizations will be allowed the option to provide another type of health insurance they will have to participate in the program unless they have less than ten employees.

The health insurance program will be effective across the country will include coverage for families as well.

Abergale International Livestock Development plc, Ethiopia is to begin the export of fresh meat through the newly constructed cold storage area at the Mekelle Alula Aba Nega International Airport.

Abergale buys animals from farmer’s co-operatives and traders in Amhara, Afar and Tigray Regional states. The animals are housed in four different locations with veterinarian checks for quality before they are taken to slaughterhouses for export to various destinations; Angola, Egypt, the Comoros Island, and gulf countries like Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates according to Gebre Egziabher Kidanu Head of the Marketing Department of the company.

Ghion Hotel, Ethiopia is up for sale after a bid to attract joint venture investors issued by the Privatization and Public Enterprises Supervisory Agency failed to attract interest.

PPESA will also be revising the estimated minimum price set for the hotel according to Wendafrash Assefa, Head of Public Relations with the agency.

The Ghion hotel has been up for joint investment with the government for some years but the deals that have been arranged failed a couple of times.

Alta Computec plc, official dealer of Sharp products in Ethiopia, introduced new high tech printers, video conferencing systems, replacement of projections and Interactive Liquid Crystal Displays.

The new printers are multifunctional and the interactive LCDs can serve as whiteboards explained Ravinder Kumar, Deputy General Manager and Business Solutions Manager with the Middle Eastern Division of SHARP, speaking at a workshop held to introduce the products.  

The new products come in different sizes which will be significant for the Ethiopian market according to Kumar.

Ethiopia earned 71.1 million US dollars in revenue from the export of leather and leather products over the last seven months according to the Ministry of Industry.

The revenue raised in the reporting period exceeds that earned in the same period last fiscal year by more than 62% said Melaku Taye, Communications Director with the Ministry.

Southwest Energy is in the process of negotiations with the Ministry of Mines, Ethiopia to reach to a production sharing agreement for the exploration area around Jimma.

The company has been in the process of carrying out a petroleum study on the Jimma concession in collaboration with the Ministry of Mines said Tewdros Ashenafi, Chairman and Chief Executive of Southwest Energy.

Southwest has agreed to take over the Jimma block pending some things that need to be finalized with the ministry he explained.