2merkato

The Ethiopian Commodity Exchange sold 92 seats, with full membership privileges, last week. The seats were sold at competitive bid held at the Wabi Shebelle Hotel. The exchange will earn 123,370,708.81 birr from the sale.

50 of the 92 full membership seats on offer were allocated to limited members and suppliers previously engaged in limited trading on the exchange. 66 bids were received for the 50 seats with the highest bid received from Ato Teklay Gebre-Mariam Gebre-Medhin for 2,000,150 birr. The lowest winning bid was 459,950 birr. The commodities exchange is expected to earn more than 42 million birr from the sale of the fifty seats.

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.

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.

The volume of commodities exchanged via the Ethiopian Commodities Exchange (ECX) exceeded 500,278 tonnes in 2003. It was announced yesterday that trading for this last Ethiopian fiscal year has shown an increase of 128% over the 223,000 tonnes traded last year, in a report given by Dr. Eleni Gebre Medhin, CEO of ECX at the Sheraton Addis.

The commodities exchange market saw a marked increase in trade and sound financial showing to match expanding operations in 2003 (Ethiopian Calendar) said Dr. Eleni.