This landmark plot located in the most central part
of Addis Abeba, became a subject of dispute between
the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) and several
private companieshoused in the villas around. Part
of the 7,000sqm plot located at the junction of Ras
Desta Damtew and Yohannes streets, right next to the
Ethiopia Hotel, was leased to ALMETA Impex, which
wanted to construct an 11-storey building, before
the previous city administration gave the plot to
the CBE. When this became the only decision upheld
by the current administration, close to 10 companies
and residents in the area were provoked to stand up
to the might of Ethiopia’s largest bank.
Officials at the Ethiopian Customs Authority and the national
flagship carrier, the Ethiopian Shipping Lines (ESL), found
themselves in a tug of war last week, following a letter sent by the
Authority's chief in Addis.
Dawit Ethiopia, general manager of Lagar Customs, pointed at ESL in
his letter of August 2nd, claiming that the latest corrections
entered on bills of lading gives room to those who want to play with
the system. A transition period given by the Ministry of Revenues to
enforce its latest directive, lifting the right of importing duty
free items, left officials from these two state organizations in a
deadlocked dispute.
Ethiopian Leasing Two Brazilian
Jets for Five Years
Pressured by unexpected surge in passengers, particularly those
flying to and from North America, Ethiopian Airlines has been forced
to scout for additional aircrafts. Its management is under
negotiations with Varig, a Brazilian Airline and member of Star
Alliance, to acquire two Boeing 777 airplanes through a long-term
lease.
Varig Airlines has been flying the skies of Brazil since 1927. It
now has a fleet of 81 aircrafts, boasting Boeing 727, 737, 767 and
747 airplanes as well as DC-10 equipment, according to its website.
Dashen Bank’s
management is expected to declare an astounding gross profit of 185
million Br for 2005-06, leading the management to declare the just
ended Ethiopian, fiscal year “the most successful”.
The Bank’s
President, Leulseged Teferi, broke the news at a top-level
management meeting held July 21 and 22, 2006, in the town of Awassa,
273Km south of Addis Abeba. Convened in a hall inside MIDROC
Ethiopia’s chip wood manufacturing plant, all the 36 branch managers
of Dashen and their deputies attended the meeting, according to
reliable sources.
Reaching a Milestone, Ethiopia Hits $1 Billion in Exports
Ethiopia's
revenues from exported items surpassed the threshold of one billion
dollars for the first time, thereby creating much excitement within
the government circles.
"There was so
much calling and sharing of the news last week," said a senior
minister, describing the mood among the Ethiopian officialdom.
Amended Directive
Still Draws Oil Transport Critics
Pressured by
transport owners unhappy with the original directive's provisions,
government authorities released an amended fuel transport directive
taking several, if not all, of their concerns into mind. In their
campaign to change the directive, the owners and operators had
contacted all involved ministries and governing bodies, including
the Prime Minster's office.
Distance Learning Feud Resolved with Published Apology
In an unusual
defamation case that ended in the July 23 issue of the state owned
Amharic daily Addis Zemen, a distance learning institution,
2020 Open College apologized to competitor St. Mary's College, for
having practiced false advertising in a posting it distributed
nearly two years ago. The published apology was in fulfilment of a
ruling issued by the Trade Practice Commission.
The Southern
Region Investment Commission has allotted 7,750ht of land for
agricultural investors interested in developing pineapples. SNV
Ethiopia, a Dutch developmental organization, will be providing
technical support.
Despite the
fact that government land was never previously zoned for pineapple
farming in Ethiopia, the Southern Region Investment Commission now
has land specifically zoned for this purpose in five of its woredas.
Commission officials say they are responding to a steady stream of
land requests by cultivators for areas to grow pineapples.
The progress at
Tendaho Sugar Development Project in the Afar Regional State has
suffered a serious drawback, missing the critical month of July
2006, a rainy season that was planned to give the project its
highest water catchments.
Delay in the
release of financing from both local and international creditors and
the ballooning price of cement are major culprits, according to
informed sources. Now that the rainy season is in full swing with
the project's dam only completed by 81pc, managers of the project
were forced to postpone their water catchments plans to February
2007.
Ethiopia’s
flagship carrier, the Ethiopian Shipping Lines (ESL), has announced
a record high profit of 233 million Br from its operations during
the just ended Ethiopian fiscal year (1998), its officials
disclosed.
The latest
performance, disclosed to a board of directors’ meeting held on
Thursday, August 3, and chaired by Getachew Belay, former minister
of Revenues, represents a growth of 39pc from last year. It comes as
a result of even larger volume of goods (42pc more) than the company
transported in 2005-06; the 42-year old carrier moved 1.6 million
tonnes of cargo, largely comprising construction materials such as
steel and electrical appliances.
Pharmaceutical Co’s Looking for Push From Government
The
federal government is in the process of designing a development
strategy for the pharmaceutical manufacturing sector, specifying
what it can do to help the troubled industry and spell out
stakeholders’ responsibilities, sources disclosed.
The
strategic plan is being developed by the Ministry of Trade and
Industry, whose officials are keen to address what has gone wrong in
the industry during the past decade. The government is looking to
take a great deal of contribution from owners of pharmaceutical
companies, who are due to meet on August 10, 2006, at the Ministry,
with top officials of the ministries of Trade and Industry and
Health.
Oromia Streamlines Bureaucracy to Spark Investment
In an effort to
streamline bureaucracy and see investment commitments evolve to
fruition, the Oromia Investment Commission has completed its
reengineering of the region’s business process.
Taking almost a
year, the new guideline was approved by the executive branch of the
regional state last month.
The Ethiopian
Telecommunications Corporation (ETC) is to build a 10-storey twin
tower complex, which will house its strategic business units. ETC
has 11 departments all together employing 8,122 people, 10 of them
described as strategic services.
The building
will be erected on a 1,000sqm plot the company owns behind its
headquarters, on Gambia Street. The state owned consulting firm,
Construction Designs S.C., has designed the architecture for a
400,000 Br fee.
Ethio-Investment
Group to Import Heavy Construction Equipment
The Korean
heavy-duty machinery manufacturer, Daewoo Doosan Infracore Co. Ltd,
has picked the Ethio-Investment Group (EIG) as its exclusive agent
in Ethiopia, after nine years of business with Hagbes Pvt., its
first representative.
The agreement
between EIG and Daewoo was signed on June 8, 2006, although
officials from EIG told Fortune that Daewoo sales from their
company will begin this month. EIG is authorized by the Korean
manufacturer to import and sell construction equipment such as
excavators, wheel loaders and skid steer loaders.
One
Year and Counting, Ethio-Jazz Finding
Its Soul at Sheraton
Chairs and tables covered the dance floor at the Gaslight and
the lights were kept dim; the venue contained a mellow and cosy
feeling, which was further enhanced by the beautiful sounds of music
coming from the live band performing onstage.
The usually vibrant and energetic
nightclub had taken on the form of a jazz bar; a movie set come to
life, as people of different ages came together on Wednesday night,
August 2, in appreciation and celebration of jazz.
The stories that often come
out Lebanon and other countries of the Middle East where tens of thousands of
Ethiopians try to make wages are often dreadful. But this time around, woeful
reports of imprisonment, confinement, starvation and physical abuse are not the
problems. It is the bitter war between Israel and Hezbollah that has many locals
worried about loved ones who travelled abroad to improve life for their family.
As hundreds of these workers start to come back, Derese Nigatu,
Fortune Staff Writer, tried to uncover the economic, as well as the
emotional impact.
In our time,
world trade negotiations often reached the brink, but a deal - no matter how
diluted - was achieved in the eleventh hour. Not so, this time. This article,
analysing last month's demise of the Doha Round world trade negotiations, is
from the Power and Interest News Report (PINR), an independent organization
provides international relations conflict analysis.
Aid thinking
moves in policy cycles, and the dogma for now, at least for the big
European donors, is to give aid directly to governments. It is not
given completely blindly, of course, and developing countries have
to put in place poverty reduction strategies that add up.
Only a few
months ago, in June 2006, Girma Birru, minister of Trade and
Industry, made a statement that revealed – perhaps compellingly -
the dilemma his government had run into in relation to Ethiopia’s
bid to join the World Trade Organization (WTO), the global trade
police. The metaphor he chose reflects how unrealistic it is to
suggest a small fish should leave a pond only because the bigger
fish live there.
My tall Gojame friend called Thursday afternoon to kindly give me
some information that I needed. He enquired about what I was writing
about, and I ......
Among the
potential threats facing metropolitan Addis Abeba is the phenomenal
growth of the city's urban population, as well as the squalid
settlements that this engenders. The urban population is growing at
a rate of 15pc per annum; beyond the ability of this generally poor
economy either to use the available labor effectively or to provide
an adequate level of basic social services.
I am sort of a
large personality, especially tough to swallow when someone meets me
for the first time. This is not necessarily a positive thing, as
there has been more than one occasion in which I may have offended
people to the core.
This extremely
extroverted nature has gotten me in trouble more than you can
imagine, and as I have gotten older, I have tried to curb this way
of mine and make it a bit more subtle and fine tuned. Although the
process is far from being completed, I do think it is coming along.
The news did
not hit the headlines on the front pages of the press. Nor did it
get any airtime in international news. Last week's traffic accident
that saw a truck fly off a bridge into the Akaki River south of
Addis, however, was fatal and daunting. I do not know how long it
took the driver to meet his death after he left his home and family
earlier that day. He was reported to have been speeding before he
dived into Akaki River some 18Km south of Addis Abeba. The fatal
accident also took the life of an innocent woman passerby who was
apparently swept into the river by the careening truck. Her body was
found in the river five days after professional divers from the fire
brigade and members of the community had conducted a strenuous
round-the-clock search for the dead bodies in the muddy flood of the
river. The driver's body was found early last Wednesday; a day after
the body of the woman was discovered.
“I Was There
When…”If everyone who says they saw former US President Clinton
playing saxophone at the Sheraton Addis were actually there when it
happened, some say that not even Addis Abeba Stadium would have been
large enough to host the event.
Because in case you were to hear people in town claiming to have had
the privilege of having been there when former U.S. President Bill
Clinton played saxophone at Sunset Bar, an exclusive club in the
Sheraton with over 4,000 Br annual membership fee, gossip wants to
set the record straight.
