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Alecto minerals acquired Rift Valley Resources, a Tanzanian company, with control of a three year exploration license for gold and emerald in Waya Boda in the prospective Adola green stone belt in Southern Ethiopia.

The Waya Boda concession is a promising venture in gold and emerald exploration in a region of Ethiopia known to host significant deposits according Alecto Managing Director Damian Conboy.

The rules of formation for the Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics Services Enterprise were made public last week.  The set up capital for the enterprise was established at 3.7 billion birr.

The rules of formation show the enterprise to be a government development corporation as well as establishing the rights, responsibilities and regulations of the company.

The enterprise is expected to offer shipping services, stevedoring and shore handling services for import and export purposes, multi modal transport, dry port and warehousing, freight forwarding and clearing amongst other logistical services according to the rules of formation.

Ethiopian Airlines has been awarded by The African Airlines Association for registering the best financial results in 2010 and consistent profitability over the years.

Ethiopian Airlines was recognized with the award at the 43rd AFRAA Annual General Assembly held in Marrakesh, Morocco last week.

Nyota Minerals has announced that it is completing its definitive feasibility study on its 1.5 million ounce concession at Tulu Kapi in Ethiopia. The study is required to support the project's financing.

The company has developed the Tulu Kapi concession from zero to more than 1.5 million ounces through drilling an estimated 230 holes in two years according to statement released by Nyota to its investors.

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.