2merkato

USAID signed an agreement with Ethiopian private banks this week that will allow the banks to extend more credit to agriculture and health projects.

The agreement allows for loans up to 20.7 million US dollar for agro processing industries, health enterprises outside of Addis Ababa, small scale farmers and farmers co-operatives.

The three banks that signed the accord with USAID are Zemen, NIB and Abyssinia.

Ethiopia banned the import of plastic bags, as part of the national green growth initiative, on Monday.

A bill to ban the import of plastic bags was approved by the Parliament according to the Ethiopian Environmental Protection Authority.

The ban will also include the manufacture of plastic bags within the country noted the authority.

Castel Winery has begun production in Ethiopia. The winery was established in Oromia Regional State at a cost of 300 million birr.

The Winery will have the capacity of to produce more than 500,000 bottles of wine in six months according to Fithanegast Aynalem, General Manger of the Winery.

Castel aims to double the foreign exchange being earned by the wine sector in Ethiopia by exporting more than a million bottles of wine to Europe, Eastern and Southern Africa and the United States.

The Ethiopian Airports Enterprise announced plans to expand the apron capacity of Bole International Airport. The project is expected to cost an estimated 1.1 million birr.

The first phase of this project will be finalized this December according to Wondim Teklu, Public Relations Head of the Ethiopian Airports Enterprise.

BGI Ethiopia has acquired a 30% share in Raya Brewery worth 75 million birr. Raya Brewery has sold 217.5 million birr in shares so far according to Lemma Bekele, General Manager of the brewery.

Raya Brewery intends to sell 250 million birr in shares and has presented a request for a 482 million birr loan from the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia said Lemma.

An independent preliminary economic assessment of Allana Potash gave the assent an after-tax net present value of 1.85 billion US dollars and a 36.8% internal rate of return.

The PEA stated that a one million ton per annum mine at the Dankil project will cost 796 million US dollars to build.

The capital cost figure makes the projects the lowest cost and possibly the highest return potash project in the world according to Farhad Abasov CEO of Allana.

The Ethiopian Shipping Lines Share Company announced plans to open Multi Modal Transport service to the private sector.

Multi Modal transport offers the transportation of goods through different means of shipping (eg rail and road) under a single contract. The carrier is held liable for the whole trip across the various means under this system.

The Multi Modal system will be in effect for goods passing through Port Djibouti which accounts for 98% of Ethiopia’s imports and exports.

Employees of the former Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation have been called back by Ethio Telecom. Ethio Telecom is forming a new company ‘Hidasse’ Telecom Supportive Share Company’ which will offer employment to all laid off ETC employees at their previous salaries.

Former ETC employees who accept the employment with ‘Hidasse’ will not be considered as employees of Ethio Telecom.

Dashen Bank has contracted for the construction of two branches in the Ethiopian towns of Gondar and Dire Dawa. The construction projects are expected to cost a total of 103.5 million birr.

The construction of the Dashen branch in the Northern town of Gondar will be carried out by Orbit Engineering plc. The contractor won the project for 37.5 million birr and took charge of the building site last week.

The Ethiopian Mapping Agency put out an invitation for companies interested in conducting aerial photography in digital format and photo-grammetric processing last week. The tender will remain open until the 15th of December.

The invitation includes aerial photography of 23 major urban areas including Addis Ababa, Dire Dawa and regional states in an effort to prepare a national cadastral map.