2merkato

Allana Potash Corp. announced yesterday that it had signed a feasibility study contract with ERCOSPLAN Ingenieurgesellschaft Geotechnik und Bergbau for its Ethiopian Potash Project.

The feasibility study is scheduled to be completed in the second half of 2012 and will begin immediately.

Additional equipment is being mobilized to the site and expansion of the camp is underway according to Farhad Abasov, president and CEO of Allana.

Ethiopia is planning, in partnership with Castel (a French wine making group) to start exporting wine from the vineyard near Ziway, 170km to the south of Addis Ababa.

The site was chosen in 2008 and 750,000 vines were planted, employing a labour force of 750, mostly local people.

"We want to export nearly half of our production, especially to the United States, which has a large Ethiopian community," Robel Seido, head of sales at Castel, said. According to Seido, the other half of the production will be set aside for the local market, but it will be of a better quality than the few existing table wines in the country.

Stratex International, the AIM-listed gold miner, discovered more gold from drilling at its Megenta hot spring epithermal gold discovery within its exclusive exploration licence at Tendaho in the Afar Regional State.

These include high grade intersection of 19.50 g/t Au over 0.70 metres in hole MG-DD-12 with the potential for bonanza grades veins.

These occurred within zone of 4.49 g/t Au over 3.25 metres about 70 metres below surface and extend the target zone 460 metres along concealed graben edge. The priority target zone at Megenta now extends over 3 km.

Ayat Real Estate bought Addis Ababa Ras Hote, one of the oldest hotels in Ethiopia, for 124.4 million birr last Thursday.

Three other companies had bid for the hotel. Sheger Investment offered 121.6 million birr; GCf Plc, in a joint venture with Solomon Admassu, offered 100 million birr; and Nebeyu Ketsela, an individual, offered 100 million birr.

Ayat has already paid 46 million birr, 37 percent of the 124.4 million birr for the hotel, and is scheduled to pay the balance over the coming five years. 

Coffee Plantation Development Enterprise (CPDE) announced that it had earned 84 million birr by selling coffee at local and foreign markets over the last fiscal year. The enterprise sold 64,000 quintals of coffee during the reported period.

Countries to which the enterprise exported coffee include the United Sstates, Australia, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Japan and Sweden.

About 49.5 million birr of the 84 million birr profit was obtained from over 16,000 quintals coffee sold locally.
According to the director general of CPDE, the amount earned from the export of coffee is up by 56 million from last year’s earnings. 

Ethiopia has not signed the COMESA Free Trade Agreement. Some professionals say that this could keep Ethiopian businesses from benefiting from the initiative.

Businesses in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) states will now be able to participate in tenders issued in one another’s countries with a 15 percent preferential treatment against international bidders.  

All the same, Ethiopian businesses will still enjoy the preferential treatment although tariffs will be levied on their exports to COMESA states as the country has not signed the FTA, Gashaw Debebe, secretary general of the Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce and Sectoral Associations, said.

The Ethiopian Insurance Corporation, a state owned company, said that it made a 148.6 million birr profit before tax for the fiscal year to 7 July 2011. It was 15 percent higher than the profit made the previous fiscal year.

The overall asset of the corporation also rose to some 1.5 billion birr by the end of the same period, Wondwossen Iteffa, CEO of the corporation, said. 

Revenue from premium stood at 1.1 billion birr in the period, up by 27.4 percent from last years' income. On the other hand, income from other investments such as dividend on investments elsewhere, rental income from buildings the corporation owns and others yielded 67.6 million birr.

Diageo Plc, a London based global alcoholic beverages company, bought Meta Abo, a state-owned brewery for 225 million dollars.

Late in August the Ethiopian government had floated an auction for Meta Abo Brewery weeks after Bedele and Harar breweries were sold to Heineken. British, Dutch and South African breweries were putting bids for Meta Abo, an Ethiopian brewery which brews the Meta Abo beer.

According to sources, Heineken, the Dutch brewery, offered 188 million dollars, while SAB Miller and South West Development (SWD) together bid 190 million dollars followed by Dashen Brewery which offered 173 million dollars.

Arik Air, a Nigerian private airline, asked the Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority (ECAA) for permission to start flight services to Addis Ababa.

Over eight months have elapsed since Arik Air asked permission for traffic rights, Dr. Harol de Muren, director general of Nigerian Civil Aviation, said last week in Dare es Salaam at the 17th Aviation and Allied Leadership Conference.

A representative of Arik Air said that Arik Air’s delegation was in Addis Ababa last week to discuss the issue with officials of ECAA.

The Ethiopian Airlines announced last week that it was concluding a deal with Boeing for the purchase of four Boeing 777 freighter aircraft.

A senior official of the airlines said that the management of Ethiopian and executives of Boeing had been negotiating for about a year for the purchase of the new aircraft. The deal will be announced soon according to the official.

The new deal was confirmed by a representative of Boeing who said that Boeing and Ethiopian would sign the agreement in the coming few weeks.