2merkato

The Ethiopian Public Procurement and Disposal Agency (PPDA) announced that it had bought 400,000 tonnes of ordinary Portland cement for 34.6 million dollars from D.G Khan Company Limited (DGKCC) of Pakistan and Global Africa of Israel.

According to the agency, the first shipment of 150,000 tonnes of cement is due to arrive in two weeks time.

The cement is to be used for the construction of housing projects in Addis Ababa, new sugar factories and roads, Yigezu Daba, director general of the Public Procurement & Property Disposal Service at the agency, said.

Istanbul Gas Cylinder Manufacturing Plc of Turkey is going to start distributing liquid petroleum gas (LPG) as of next week. The company is a joint venture with TIRET, the Amhara Endowment Fund.

Istanbul Gas has taken a one hectare plot of land out of 130 owned by TIRET in Sheno, Ahmara Regional State, for filling cylinders with LPG.

Istanbul Gas has already imported 22,000 tonnes of gas from Sudan and four depots through which 6,000 cylinders will be filled, Nuzet Erdogan, owner and general manager of the company, said.

Ethiopia’s revenue from textile exports over the last two months hit 18.5 million dollars, up from 11.6 million dollars in the same period the previous year.

Textile products that contributed to the increase of the revenue included yarn and thread, garments, clothes and weaving products which contributed 4.8 percent, 9.percent, 78 percent and 8.2 percent respectively.

Late in July, it was reported that Ethiopia had earned 62.2 million dollars from the export of textile in the fiscal year to 7 July 2011 achieving 73.1 percent of its projection. The amount is a 178 percent increase from the previous fiscal year’s earning which was 23.2 million dollars.

The Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation announced that the African Development Bank is going to finance the construction of Geba Dam and the construction of power transmission lines from Ethiopia to Kenya.

The corporation had requested the bank to directly supply 230 million dollars of the estimated 1.3 billion dollar cost of the transmission line, but the bank has not yet decided how much of the cost it is going to cover.

Ethiopia and Kenya had signed a memorandum of understanding for the construction of the transmission line in May 2006. The proposed bipolar, 1070 km long, 500KV line will originate from Welayta Sodo in the south of Ethiopia and terminate at Longonot, Kenya.

The Ministry of Industry accepted last week a proposal by the Ethiopian Textile and Garment Manufacturers Association to lift excise tax and to lower custom duty tax on imported textiles.

Late in August, a new study had 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 Ministry of Industry announced that it would ban the export of crusted leather as of December 2011 due to price hikes and the scarcity of supplies.

The ban aims to control the price hike of hides and skins in the market, and as a result force out the middle men who speculate on prices according to Berhanu Serjabo, director of corporate communication of the Leather Industry Development Institute under the ministry.

Zemen Bank’s net profit doubled from 29 million birr to 63.5 million birr in the last fiscal year.

Zemen Bank disbursed 633.7 million birr in loans to its customers. Loans to medium and long-term projects amounted to 53 percent of the total loans disbursed.

Although the bank increased loans disbursed to its customers by 67.6 percent, its loan-to-deposits ratio remained at 55 percent, the same as that of the year before. 

The amount of the loan is estimated to be around 1.45 billion dollars.

The airlines placed orders for 10 Dreamliners in 2005 valued at 1.5 billion dollars. Originally, deliveries were scheduled for 2008-2010, which Boeing failed to meet. Now Ethiopian expects to receive the first two of ten Dreamliners next March which it ordered in 2005.

Allana Potash said yesterday that it had intersected potash mineralization in Holes 24, 25 and 26 at shallow depths in the south-western portion of its land position in Ethiopia.

In addition to previous holes completed by Allana, holes 24, 25 and 26 form a region of potash mineralization which occurs at depth between 75 and 200 metres below surface, Farhad Abasov, President and CEO of Allana said.  

“Allana management believes that the potash in this region may be amenable to mining by open pit methods and future studies will focus on this potential,” Abasov said.

Energoinvest, the largest Bosnian engineering group, and the Ethiopian government signed 45 million dollar contract this week for the building of 150 kilometres of electric power transmission lines.

The works are scheduled to be completed in two years according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The contract was signed by Meheret Debebe, general manager of the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation and Dzemal Vlahovljak, general manager of Energoinvest.

Energoinvest won the contract on July 21.