Ethiopian Ministry of Finance has announced that, due to inflation caused by the imbalance between demand and supply of food items, it now lets such items be imported on the basis of Franco-Valuta for six months. The items allowed to imported on Franco-Valuta basis (without being required to have forex payable) are cooking oil, wheat, sugar, milk, and rice.
Draft law which aims at allowing private investors to engage in railway transportation service has been prepared. If passed by the law maker, the draft bill, dubbed Railway Transportation Administration, allows investors to use the national railway infrastructure. In other words, private companies are now allowed to give services on the already built railway infrastructures. This is in the midst of Ethiopia Railway Corporation’s (ERC) debt mounting at a staggering level, which reached 120 billion Birr.
Ethiopia is going to amend the legal regime its existing urban land law which came into effect back in 2011.
The Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE) is set to approve a 684 million birr loan request from Dutch Velocity Dairy plc a 
company engaged in the making of milk and milk products. The loan will be the largest loan to the dairy sector in the bank’s history.
The loan request from the project was fast tracked as part of the bank’s plan to expedite loan requests said Tadesse Hatiya, Vice President of Credit Services with the DBE.
The bank was able to make the necessary evaluation and come to a decision within 38 days which is an improvement on the six months it used to take to process such requests in the past explained Tadesse.
