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Delegates of General Electric, the American multinational corporation, are scheduled to arrive here next week for the purpose of holding talks with the Ethiopian Electric and Power Corporation (EEPCo) on renewable energy investment projects in Ethiopia, Mekuria Lemma, Corporate Planning Head of EEPCo, said.

According to Meheret Debebe, CEO of EEPCo, General Electric has already expressed interest in investing in Ethiopia in the renewable energy sector.

Colvir Software Solution, a U.K.-based company that provides postal software and core banking solutions, launched its products in Ethiopia last week.

Representatives of Colvir said that the company entered the Ethiopian market following the steady growth of banks and other financial institutions in the country.

VAT registered businesses throughout Ethiopia are going to start using cash register machines like those in Addis Ababa.

Officials in the Tigray Regional State started this week enforcing the use of cash registration machines the Ethiopian Revenue and Customs Authority (ERCA) said. The Amhara, Oromia and SNNP regional states are preparing to begin using the system.

The Central Statistical Agency said this week that Ethiopia’s inflation rate climbed to 39.2 percent in July from a year earlier.

Inflation accelerated from 38.1 percent in June, according to the agency. Food prices increased by 47.4 percent in July after rising 45.3 percent in the previous month, while the cost of non-food items fell from 27.9 percent to 27.8 percent, it said.

Stratex International, the AIM-listed gold miner, saw shares shoot up today following its announcement of "significant results" from drilling at its Megenta hot spring gold discovery in Ethiopia.

The company said that it had found new high grade samples at the nearby Akehil gold prospect.

Stratex International, along with its partner Thani Ashanti, said the latest drilling data confirmed bonanza grades were present in epithermal veins in the region and in response its shares jumped 12 percent higher.

Al Brooge Securities Company, which acquired 75 percent stake in a Djibouti Oil Refinery, is set to invest 150 million dollars to increase its daily output, Husam Alameri, CEO of the company, said.

Alameri said that the acquisition deal had been concluded with investors from the UAE and Saudi Arabia. He said that the new owners would spend 150 million dollars to increase by 150 percent the refinery's current capacity of 40,000 barrels per day of Arabian Light Crude and Arabian Heavy Crude to 100,000 barrels per day.

The chief executive officer said that the next expansion phase would start in the six months period.

Tigray to immediately launch an 11,000-metre first phase drill program at the Harvest project

Canaco Resources Inc. and Tigray Resources Inc announced last week that Tigray had received conditional listing approval from the TSX Venture Exchange, subject to usual listing requirements. When it is listed, Tigray will file the necessary election to become a public corporation as of the beginning of its first taxation year.

Andrew Lee Smith, president and CEO of both Canaco and Tigray Resources said that the companies were endeavouring to fulfil the listing requirements as quickly as possible in order to facilitate the trading of Tigray shares on the TSX-V.

Ethiopian Shipping Lines (ESL) made a 661.5 million birr profit during the fiscal year to 7 July 2011 nine percent more than its projection for the year.

Over the last quarter of the 2009/10 fiscal year, ESL made an unprecedented profit of 641.3 million birr, 154 percent of its projection for that fiscal year outperforming its projection by 56 million birr.

ESL transported 2.2 million tonnes of goods in the same year, below its projection of 2.5 million tonnes.

Vale South Africa Exploration Ltd, the second largest metal mining company in the world, secured an industrial mining exploration licence in the Southern Nations Nationalities (SNNPR) and Peoples Region after depositing one million dollars in a closed book account last week.

The company acquired a 1,822sqm plot of land in Konso, SNNPR. And it seeks to explore cobalt, nickel and copper.

Before it applied for the mining licence, Vale South Africa Exploration Ltd had acquired last year a prospecting licence to assess SNNPR's potential. 

The price of oil and other raw materials also fell sharply

The stock market plunged by more than 4 percent yesterday in its worst day in more than two years and investors flooded safe-haven investment alternatives, fearing that global economy may stumble into a new recession.

European markets have continued the steep share sell-off, with investors worried about both the eurozone debt crisis and the weak US economy.