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The National Accreditation Office of Ethiopia is ready to raise awareness in the agricultural, health and industrial sectors according to Araya Fesseha Director General of the ENAO.

Accreditation is a new concept in Ethiopia and requires aggressive promotion to raise awareness amongst stakeholders he said.

The accreditation office has conducted training events in Addis Ababa, and the Amahra and Tigray regional states said Araya. Further training will be done in Dire Dawa, Oromia, and the South regional state.

The Development Bank of Ethiopia extended a loan of 1.42 billion birr to Saygin B.M Technology Group LLC, a Turkish company expected to establish a cable manufacturing plant.

Saygin requested a loan of 2.1 billion birr, making it the single largest loan request for a bank loan from a private company operating in Ethiopia.

The Turkish company intends to manufacture optical fiber and power cables said Tadesse Hatiya, Vice President of Credit Services at the Development Bank of Ethiopia.

The Ethiopian Revenue and Custom Authority allowed 12.3 billion birr in duty free privileges in the last two quarters of the fiscal year in Ethiopia.

The duty privileges amounts to 35.3% of the total revenue raised by the authority in the last six months according to Efrem Mekonnen, Head of the Communications Department with ERCA.

ERCA extends duty free privileges to members of the diplomatic community and investors in pre specified strategic sectors.

The tax authority in Ethiopia is maintaining its drive to register businesses for value-added taxation across the country.

In Oromia Regional State businesses are being asked to install cash registers for the first time while regional towns are coming under the scrutiny again.

In Adama, Bishoftu and Duken out of an estimated 1, 151 businesses identified for VAT registration only 28.3% have complied by January of 2012.

The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia is to purchase about 420 Automatic Teller Machines and 600,000 electronic payment cards at an estimated cost of 100 million birr.

Suppliers from China, India and the United states were among those that tendered technical offers to deliver the ATM’s required by the CBE.

Ethiopia is to host an international conference on oil seeds, pulses and spices to enhance the market access of the various crops raised nationally.

The conference, organized in a collaborative effort by the Ethiopian Ministry of Trade and the Ethiopian Pulses, Oil seeds and Spices Processors Association will be held for three days from the 27th of February at the Sheraton Addis Hotel.

Zemen Bank Ethiopia introduced a new pre-paid card service that can be used without requiring an account at the bank. The cards will be preloaded with a determined amount of funds that can be drawn from ATMs or used for purchases at POS terminals.

The prepaid cards, expected to be made available for a range of denominations from 100-50,000 birr, will be equipped with a personal identification number to facilitate cash withdrawal said Tsegaye Tetemke President of Zemen.

The prepaid cards can be used as expense cards or be gifted to avoid the need to carry around a lot of cash he noted.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Ethiopia earned 60 million US dollars in the first quarter of the current budget year. The authority has signed arrangements with various countries to expand investment in air transport service.

The authority has reached bilateral agreements with Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland in just the last two quarters of the current financial year.

The Awash Melkasa Aluminum Sulfate and Sulfuric Acid Factory announced plans to establish a hydrogen peroxide factory in Ethiopia.

The hydrogen peroxide factory, which will begin construction soon will cost an estimated 155 million birr according to Admasu Tabaeto, Production and Technical Support Process Owner with Awash Melkasa.

Ethiopian Airlines, Ethiopia’s flag carrier, will not introduce additional fees on tickets of passengers to and from Europe to offset the European Union carbon emission costs levied on all airlines operating in Europe as part of the European Emission Trading Scheme according to a statement.

The airline is in the process of modernizing its fleet changing over to aircraft with less emissions said the statement.