2merkato

Ethiopia-focused Tigray Resources is making a healthy splash on the TSX Venture Exchange.

On its first day of trading on the TSX Venture Exchange on Wednesday, Tigray Resources charged forward closing up 64 percent at C$1.00 on brisk trading volume. Then it continued the streak, jumping up a further 41 percent to C$1.41 within the first few minutes of trading yesterday.

The investor demand signals strong interest in getting on board one of the TSX Venture Exchange's latest junior explorers.

Lifan Motors announced that it was producing more 620 models to meet the rising demand for the automobiles in the local market.

It used to take the company more than a month to assemble the 620 models after payment, depending on how long it took to ship in parts from China and process customs documents for components clearance.

Lifan assembles other models of cars but they are not available on immediate delivery basis. It takes the company two months to give out the 520 and four months for the 320 to customers.

Ethio Telecom (formerly known as Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation), now managed by a French company, made a record profit in the first year of the two-year contract.

The net profit has not been declared but sources at the telecom company say that it is likely to be higher than ever before.

The company had planned to make 9.9 billion birr and grossed 9.1 billion birr in the just ended fiscal year which is greater than that of the previous fiscal year by 2.1 billion.

Karuturi Global is planning to produce rice, maize and soybeans over 20,000 hectares of land in Ethiopia.

Karuturi, founder and managing director of the company, said that the 20,000 hectares of plantation would come up in the Oromia and Gambella regional states.

According to Karuturi, the 20,000 hectares of land is part of 100,000 hectares the company has leased from the government in 2009.

He said that the company had also planted a variety of crops like rice, maize and sugarcane in other regions of Ethiopia, besides planting roses on many farms.

Tigray has launched an 11,000-metre first phase drill program at Harvest project.

Tigray Resources Inc., a Canadian mineral exploration company focused on advancing early stage mineral projects in Ethiopia, announced yesterday that it would begin trading on the TSX Venture Exchange today under the symbol TIG.

Early this month Tigray Resources Inc had received conditional listing approval from the TSX Venture Exchange.

OTC Markets Group Inc announced today that Ethiopian Potash Corp., a Canadian mineral exploration company, was now trading on the highest tier of the OTC market, OTCQX.

Ethiopian Potash began trading today on the OTC market's prestigious tier, OTCQX International.

"The OTCQX platform offers investor-focused companies a winning combination of quality control, transparency, and broader visibility to U.S. investors," said R. Cromwell Coulson, president and CEO of OTC Markets Group. 

Ethiopia plans to export 206 million dollars worth of leather products in the current fiscal year.

That is almost double the income the country received last year, when it made 104.1 million dollars from leather.

The Leather Industry Development Institute (LIDI) is going to make 54,000 pairs of shoes a day, up by 35,000 pairs than its current production.

Ethiopia achieved 73 percent of its target from the export of leather in the fiscal year to 8 July 2011, Wondu Legesse, director general of the institute, said.

Ethiopian coffee farmers must have business plan, audited income to be eligible for the loan. 

The Cooperative Bank of Oromia (CBO) is going to offer 60 million birr in loans to coffee farmers’ cooperatives through a risk sharing agreement it signed last month with Rabo Bank Foundation (a Netherlands based bank) and its sister company Rabo Rural Fund.

Through the agreement the CBO can extend loans to farmers for which Rabo will guarantee 50 percent of the loan if defaulted.

Coffee farmers who wish to benefit from the offer are expected to form a cooperative to be eligible, Wondemageghu Neger, president of the bank, said.

Awash International Bank (AIB), one of the private banks in Ethiopia, made a 510 million birr gross profit in the fiscal year to 8 July 2011, outdoing its previous year unaudited gross profit by 38.3 percent.

The performance is also 14 percent higher than the bank's internal plan.

In the same year, the paid up capital of the bank grew by 40 percent from 550 million birr to 734 million birr. This was done on the decision of shareholders to raise the bank's paid up capital to one billion birr within three years.

A new study proposed that the 10 percent excise tax imposed on imported textile products be lifted.

The study also suggested that separate taxes be imposed on finished and partially finished textile products replacing the indiscriminate 35 percent tax.

The proposal was made following a study by the association of textile producers in collaboration with concerned government bodies.

Results of the study indicated that the association and the government had reached a common understanding that it was not right that all kinds of textile products should be taxed uniformly, Sleshi Lemma, director general of the Institute of Textile Industry, said.