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Bid proffered by international contractors for the construction of the headquarter building of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia were revealed last week.

The largest sum of money proposed proved to be the 6.4 billion birr offered by China Jiangizu International, while the China State Construction submitted a financial proposal of more than 4.5 billion birr. The last company, of the three that had acceptable technical proposals,  Associated Construction and Investment, a Dubai-based construction company offered the lowest bid of more than 3 billion birr.

Ethiopian Airlines, Ethiopia’s flag carrier, revealed its new and enhanced website. The newly redesigned website is expected to be more user friendly.

The airlines’ is delighted to improve its customer’s ability to do business with it by enhancing the website said according to Tewolde Gebremariam, Chief Executive Officer of Ethiopian Airlines.

The newly redesigned website will support the airline’s global call center and the various agent offices to be found around the world allowing customers a range of options to communicate and interact with Ethiopian he said.

Samsung is to set up a new Traffic Management Center to offer a centrally controlled traffic system in Ethiopia’s Capital, Addis Ababa.

The South Korean electronics company is in the process of conducting a pre-feasibility study and is expected to secure a loan from the Korean Import-Export Bank to finance the project.

The project was first discussed between representatives from Samsung and the Addis Ababa City Roads Authority in November of 2010 according to Engineer Fekade Hailu, General Manager of the Addis Ababa City Roads Authority.

Global Consultant Oracle and its Ethiopian affiliate Boston Consulting conducted a workshop for business owners in Ethiopia at the Sheraton Hotel last week.

The workshop concentrated on enhancing the technological capacity of business by offering them a better understanding of how they can utilize engineered hardware like database machines.

Businesses can avoid down time and associated costs when employees are not working at maximum productivity said Austine Ouma representing Oracle.

Artmetal is expanding into the production of machine tools and local ferric finished products to fill a perceived need in the market in Ethiopia according to Seid Hassen, General Manager of Artmetal parent company, Wide Business plc.

Artmetal was previously engaged in just the import of iron which costs much less than importing finished machine tools he said.

The Artmetal Supply and Ferric Processing and Engineering Factory in Alem Gena was expanded at a cost of 18 million birr to increase its production capacity to 600 cubic meters of ferric products monthly. 

A study conducted by the Common Market of Eastern and Southern revealed that Ethiopia’s manufacturing secure is not yet ready to be competitive internationally and is showing little sign of improvement.

The study was commissioned by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development and financed by the COMESA secretariat.

Problems noted by the study include slow productivity, high production costs, shortage and low quality of raw materials, shortage in foreign exchange, lack of skilled manpower, and frequent power interruptions.

The Shipping and Logistics Enterprise of Ethiopia has made a minimum of 9% discount on ocean freight transport for the next month.

The Enterprise did not officially announce the discount, which has been effective since the 9th of February with importers discovering it through lower prices on shipments.

The discount is due to the coordinated efforts of the various government agencies that have come together to form the new Enterprise according to an official.

Ethiopia earned more than 60 million US dollars from the export of oil seeds last month according to Kebede Chane, Minister of Trade.

The revenue was earned from the export of 48,000 tons of oil seeds said Kebede speaking at the opening of the International Conference on Oil Seeds, Pulses and Spices, held in Addis Ababa.

Export trade is significant for the Ethiopian agriculture led development strategy and sesame production has been contributing to enhance the nations export income he noted.

The Revenues and Customs Authority of Ethiopia is to launch an electronic cargo tracking system on the road between Addis Ababa and Port Djibouti.

The effort, which will commence in two weeks, expects to track and monitor the transit of goods, to reduce customary theft that added up to 1.4% of commodities exported in the last fiscal year according to statistics from the International Cargo Securities Council.

Such acts of theft have negatively affected the image of Ethiopian exports on the international market claimed Belay Desta, Head of the Border Directorate with ERCA.

The Revenues and Customs Authority of Ethiopia has submitted a shortlist of six companies to conduct a national revenues potential study to the World Bank.

The firm selected to conduct the job will be required to measure the revenue productivity of each tax and discover discrepancies between potential revenue and the revenue being actually collected.

The study will reveal strength’s and weakness on the part of ERCA in its efforts to raise domestic revenue according to an official with the authority.