2merkato

The 2011 Information Economy Report has disclosed that Ethiopian mobile phone penetration is a little more than 7%. The report was released on October 19th by the UN Conference on Trade and Development in association with the UN Economic Commission for Africa.

Expansion of mobile phone services may require an atmosphere of competition between different service providers according to Remi Lang, Economic Affairs officer at UNCTAD. Opening the telecom industry to foreign competitors could result in better performance he suggested.

The Ethiopian Commodities Exchange (ECX) is to review a proposal for trading in chickpeas and sorghum. The exchange announced plans to introduce the two commodities alongside Teff at its fourth national forum.

An industry study has already been done for chickpeas and sorghum said Bemnet Aschenaki chief strategy officer for the ECX. The study was done on samples collected by the ECX quality and product development team as per suggestions outlined by a technical advisory board explained Bemnet.

Dashen Bank launched electronic banking services for Union Card holders this week. This service is aimed to serve the increasing numbers of Union Card holders including the growing number of Chinese citizens in Ethiopia according to Lulseged Teferi President of Dashen Bank.

Dashen Bank is the first Bank in Africa to sign a partnership agreement with UnionPay said Lulseged. It is expected that agreement with UnionPay, which has over 2.5 billion clients worldwide, will significantly influence the growth of Dashen he explained.

Businesses in Hawassa, capital of the Southern Regional State, started using cash register machines as of last Thursday. VAT registered businesses in the city have transferred from using hand prepared VAT receipts to using the cash registers according to the report.

The cash register machines enable VAT registered businesses to abandon the use of VAT receipts except when power outages occur said Seleshi W/Mariam in charge of the tax awareness training process for the regional tax authority. The use of the electronic reporting machines ensures a smooth and speedy relationship between business and the tax authorities he explained. The system also avoids presumptive taxation according to Seleshi.

Allana Potash Corp announced on Tuesday that it has intersected three zones of strong potash mineralization in hole DK-11-28, found in the northwestern region of the company’s potash concession in Ethiopia.

Allana is encouraged by the consistently strong potash mineralization seen in the results from the northwestern part of its concession according to Farhad Abasov President and CEO.

Mobile Phones will be used to help health professionals collect data, have it analyzed and receive feedback in a show case project to be launched next week in Ethiopia. The project is led by Technology for Change International and is expected to cost approximately 370,000 US dollars.

The project will distribute a thousand mobile handsets to health professionals in the Amhara, Oromia Southern and Tigray regional states. The health professionals will use the handsets to gather data on pregnant women and send it on to a central server.

The Ethiopian Ministry of Mines announced that five international companies have invested 6.5 billion US dollars in the Ethiopia potash mining industry.

The five companies are G and B Central Africa Resource Limited, Saynic Potash, Nova Potash, Allana Potash and BHP Belton World Exploration Ethiopia. All of these companies have based their activites in Dalol.

Potash deposits from three points in the South Western part of its claims were made by Allana Potash last week according to company sources.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) signed an agreement with NIB International Bank to make an additional 10 million dollars available towards helping farmer cooperatives in Ethiopia on Oct 13.

The IFC and NIB have a risk sharing arrangement already in place to help forty five thousand coffee farmers in 62 cooperatives in Oromia and Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Regional States. The two financial organizations have worked together to set up a 10 million dollar facility for coffee farmers in the past according to Amerga Kassa President of NIB. 

The Ethiopian Revenues and Customs Authority discovered millions in unpaid back taxes through its continued investigation of oil companies. Unpaid taxes from Total Ethiopia and National Oil Company have particularly been identified according to sources.

Total has paid 11.9 million birr of the 23.9 million that it was required to pay in unpaid VAT and withholding tax. It is contesting the remaining 12 million birr said sources.  The authority determined the amount it was owed based on payments made for technical services. This is in transgression of the tax law which designates that all payments in consideration of any kind of technical services or expert advice rendered outside of Ethiopia in any form shall be liable to tax at a flat rate of 10pc, which shall be withheld and paid to the tax authority. 

The Ethiopian Commodities Exchange (ECX) is to offer 80 more full membership seats according to members. The seats will be offered to traders who have had limited membership rights so far. The additional seats will be sold in auction in November.

The auction will only be made open to those who have been involved in trading at the ECX.