2merkato

Zablon Trading Private Limited Company opened a processing plant for oilseed and pulses on 1 October 2011.  The plant is expected to clean and sort over 1,200 quintals of export standard oil seeds and pulses every year.

The company has exported oil seeds and pulses valued at approximately 5 million dollars, last year and is planning to raise its exports to 25 million this year said Biniam Bedewi Owner and Managing director of Zablon.  He said that they hope to achieve this through developing human resource and creating stronger links with local banks.

Boeing announced this week that Ethiopian Airlines placed an order for four of its 777 freight aircraft. The deal between the Seattle based aircraft manufacturer and the Ethiopian airway is estimated at 1.1 billion US dollars. A joint announcement on Wednesday made in Seattle explained that Ethiopian Airlines was the first African Airline to order the twin engine aircraft.

The Airline's freight capacity and range will be greatly enhanced by the new acquisitions according to Tewolde Gebremariam, CEO of Ethiopian Airlines. The planes demonstrated operational and economical efficiency that is sure to strengthen the position of prominence enjoyed by the airline in Africa, said Tewolde.

Some of the machinery ordered by the Ethiopian government for the building of the Renaissance Dam started arriving in Port Djibouti. The machines that arrived at Port of Djibouti and are ready for transport were imported primarily from the United States and Italy.

A couple of US made Caterpillar family trucks, (990) at a cost of 1.5 million dollars each and Italian Astra machinery (including RD 40 and RD 50) at a cost of 250,00 euros each are currently at Port Djibouti awaiting transport to the project site. The imported machinery consists of bulldozers, dumpers, rollers, graders as well as other heavy duty machines to be utilized in the construction of the Dam said Mr. Pierre Kothari, Agent for Salini Contractors in Djibouti, on Wednesday.

The volume of commodities exchanged via the Ethiopian Commodities Exchange (ECX) exceeded 500,278 tonnes in 2003. It was announced yesterday that trading for this last Ethiopian fiscal year has shown an increase of 128% over the 223,000 tonnes traded last year, in a report given by Dr. Eleni Gebre Medhin, CEO of ECX at the Sheraton Addis.

The commodities exchange market saw a marked increase in trade and sound financial showing to match expanding operations in 2003 (Ethiopian Calendar) said Dr. Eleni.

Ethiopian federal offices are ready to establish special offices catering to investment and related requests from the Ethiopian Diaspora.

The new units will endeavour to reduce bureaucratic red tape as a precursor to complete Diaspora policy that will come into effect by December.

Baraton Trading P.L.C signed an agreement with Furukawa, a Japanese company, to import hydraulic breakers and rock drills.

The deal is expected to ease the problems faced by Ethiopian contractors to obtain the construction materials.

Representatives of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry are scheduled to visit Ethiopia in November.

The visit is due to a country focus presentation that members of the Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce and Sectoral Associations had made late in June to 150 companies in Dubai on the investment opportunities and promotion available in Ethiopia. 

The Ethiopia-Djibouti electric power transmission was launched yesterday in Djibouti in the presence of Meles Zenawi, prime minister of Ethiopia and Omar Guelleh, president of Djibouti.

The project is estimated to meet 75 percent of Djibouti’s power demad.

The 65 million dollar project, largely financed by the African Development Bank (AfDB), aims to raise access to electricity in Djibouti to 60 percent by 2015 which was 49.5 percent in 2003.

The Ethiopian Maritime and Transit Service Enterprise (EMTSE) received instruction from the Ministry of Industry last week to prepare port facilities for handling coal imported by Ethiopian Petroleum Enterprise (EPE).

It was reported in Mid August that the Ethiopian Petroleum Enterprise (EPE) was going to import coal from South Africa to secure sustainable supply of coal as an alternative source of energy for cement factories.

The National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) introduced to banks on September 19, 2011a Swift Cheque Value Transfer, an interbank payment system, to ensure prompt exchange and transfer of cheques above 200, 000 birr.

The SWIFT cheque value transfer allows for the head offices of banks to use Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) in settling high value cheques within six hours.

“This is a good move on the part of NBE,” Anteneh Assefah, vice president of Abyssinia Bank, said.