Ethiopia’s Ministry of Finance signed a financing agreement of $907 million with the World Bank today. The financing is aimed at providing support in three areas: improving access to financing for small and micro enterprises, electricity investment, and the fight against COVID-19.
The first-of-its-kind biodiesel refinery plant is to go operational in December 2018 in Adama Industrial Zone, with an annual biodiesel production of over 70 million liters. The biodiesel refinery will make use of 1.4 million hectares of reforestation, of the drought resistant biofuel plant Jatropha, to provide renewable biofuel resource. This is one of the ten similar plants API plants to build by 2025, which are expected to generate a total of 730 million liters of biofuel annually.
API, African Power Initiative, has set out to launch this commercial biodiesel refinery after erecting a successful pilot refinery plant. Marcos Bitew, CEO of API, said that their team is “incredibly excited and gratified for the world to see our vision of sustainable energy production coming to fruition in Ethiopia.”
Ethiopia’s first donkey slaughterhouse, Shandong Dong, is still undertaking business even if it has been banned by the government. The company is continuing business until the stock of donkeys it has purchased are slaughtered. According to Fortune, their stock should be complete sometime in this week.
Balaaji Manufacturing PLC, an Indian Based company owning a plant in Ethiopia, launched the country’s first ever assembly plant of electric powered motorcycles. The bikes are called “Scooty”.
Ethiopia’s first engine manufacturing plant dubbed Mekelle Engine Production Factory, found in Tigray State, is set to be operational. The company, which is a state owned, is under the Metal and Engineering Corporation (MeTEC).
