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Shoe Exporter Huajian Planning a Huge Expansion in Ethiopia

Huajian, one of the largest shoe exporters in China, is planning a multi-million-dollar factory expansion in Ethiopia to benefit from preferential trade tariffs and lower labor costs.

The company, which makes women shoes for global brands such as, Tommy Hilfiger, Guess, Naturalizer, Clarkes and others opened its factory at a purpose-built industrial zone on the outskirts of Addis Ababa a year ago.

The company has launched new line of injection-molded shoes several hundred more workers to the 1,750 Huajian already employs in Ethiopia, where the leather industry is well established, but unemployment is rife.

Huajian has also signed an agreement with the China Africa Development Fund, a private equity fund owned by China Development Bank, to invest jointly USD 2 billion over 10 years in developing manufacturing clusters focused on shoe-making in Ethiopia, Helen Hai, manager who runs the company's plant in Ethiopi…

Brazilian Development Bank to Provide USD1 Billion for Ethiopian Railway Project

The Brazilian Development Bank will extend USD 1 billion in funding to construct a portion of the railway project that will connect Ethiopia and South Sudan, an Ethiopian Foreign Ministry official said.

Brazil's Andrade Gutierrez Participacoes SA will be contracted to build the railway link running from Addis Ababa, to Jimma about 439 kM to the southwest, Taye Atskeselassie, director general for the Americas at the ministry, said in an interview on May 24.

The Brazilian Development bank “is willing to finance the project,” he said after Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn met Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. “The technical side has been finalized, it’s only the financing part; it’s a matter of the details.” Construction will begin “soon,” he said.

EXIM Bank of China concluded a loan agreement worth nearly USD 3 billion for a railway project extending from Addis Ababa to the port of Doraleh in Dji…

Boeing 787 Dreamliners to Resume Service Soon

Boeing 787 Dreamliners will resume flights following a fix for batteries soon, Ethiopian Radio and Television Agency said quoting Boeing Company officials.

Vice President of Marketing at Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Randy J. Tinseth and Engineering Leader, 787-8 Systems Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Richard J. Horigan said here Wednesday that professionals from Boeing Company are working in collaboration with the Ethiopian Airlines to fix the batteries.

The officials said that it takes up to five days to change batteries for a single Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

Ethiopian's four Dreamliners remain grounded for four month. The aircrafts are expected to resume service in the near future following battery the battery fix, according to the officials.

Source: Walta

Ethiopian Airlines Signs Agreement with Djibouti Airport for Sea

Ethiopian Airlines, the fastest growing airline in Africa, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Djibouti International Airport for the provision of sea-air and air-sea cargo transport of goods in East Africa.

The MoU was signed at Ethiopian Airlines headquarters on Monday, 22 April 2013, between Mr. Tewolde Gebremariam, CEO of Ethiopian, and Mr. Mohamed Yacoub Mahamoud, General Manager of Djibouti International Airport.

"As the largest air cargo service provider in Africa, we are a serious player in moving trade, commerce and investment, which are the engines of fast economic development in the continent. The cooperation framework with our longtime partner, Djibouti airport, will enable us to offer new menu of choice, sea-air multimodal transport services, to our shippers, forwarders, and logistics providers in Africa", said Tewolde, CEO of Ethiopian.

Ethiopian Airlines is the biggest cargo operator in Africa flying to 25 destinatio…

Ethiopia Drafting New Building Code

Ethiopia is drafting a new building code to replace the existing one, adopted 18 years ago. The new code is to be modeled after European, U.S. and Singapore building codes.

The Ministry of Urban Development and Construction contracted the Addis Abeba Institute of Technology (AAIT), in January 2012, to draft the code for a fee of 2.6 million Br. A team of 50 professionals, including professors, contractors and architects from across the capital, have been working on the document.

“We expect the whole draft within 45 days,” Yoseph Birru (Dr), head of the Construction Industry Development and Regulatory Bureau of the MoUDC, said.

The draft code takes into consideration earthquake and wind effects, which in turn require new designing codes, the use of more re-bars in construction and bigger structural frameworks in buildings, Yoseph explained.

A draft to establish a Construction Council which will man…

Agency Introduced New Government Procurement Standards

The Ethiopian Procurement and Property Administration Agency (FPAA) announced 224 new standards in relation to asset purchases by federal and regional government institutions. The Agency issued the new standards to minimize wastage of government money on purchase and fixing of assets by government agencies. The new standards introduced by the Agency will take effect in two weeks time.

“The standards will be effective immediately, after each government institution receives the list,” said Tsegaye Abebe, director general of the Agency, at the meeting held with regional government officials on Thursday, March 07, 2013, at the Ministry of Finance & Economic Development.

The Agency has conducted research on the items purchased by the federal government agencies and five regional states,last year. The finding of the research, which took six months, indicated, almost all of the items purchased did fulfill international standards. Read more

LG Ethiopia Launched Mobile After-sales Service Center

LG Electronics and Metro PLC launched a mobile after-sales service center in Ethiopia through the “Care and Delight” bus on Wednesday March 27, 2013. The two companies has invested 2 million birr on the Mobile repair center.

“LG has always placed customer satisfaction at the core of its initiatives,” stated Riyadh Yusuf, Marketing Manager of Metro Plc, speaking at the launching ceremony.

The mobile service center aims to save customers time and effort by bringing after-sales service facilities to their doorsteps free of cost.

The bus is equipped with a work station where technicians work on products customers fetch in to be serviced. The bus will also be powered by electricity generated from the LG solar cell battery system installed on the roof of the vehicle, to show LG's environmental responsibility.

Also speaking at the launching ceremony was Abdullahi Abubaker, Owner of Metro PLC, stated that, the new service will help build f…

Bahir Dar University Awarded IT Infrastructure Development Projects

Ethiopia's Bahir Dar University launched a 30 million Br Information Technology infrastructure development on Friday, March 29, 2013, for two of its new campuses.

The projects for each campus were, awarded to Neuro Net PLC and Symbol Technology PLC, respectively, each for 15 million Ethiopian Birr.

Bahir Dar University is already in the process of undertaking a 68 million Ethiopian Birr IT network infrastructure development project, since 2011, for its old campuses. These projects, undertaken by the Information Network Security Agency (INSA), are scheduled for completion in June 2013.

The required softwares for the project was developed by the System Design & Development Case Team, a branch to the Information & Strategic Communications office.

Bahir Dar University was established in 2000, integrated from the former Bahir Dar Polytechnic and Academy of Pedagogy, which were established in 196…

Karuturi Global to Borrow from Sovereign Fund for its Ethiopian Investment

Indian based Karuturi Global Ltd., the world's largest rose grower, sold its firs produce from its plantation in Ethiopia. The company is also going to solicit funding from sovereign wealth fund for further investment in East Africa. Karuturi has produced more that 20,000 metric tons of corn in the last quarter of 2012 that sold for USD 6.5 million in Ethiopia, Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi, Managing Director told Bloomberg. The harvest from its plantation in western Ethiopia, showed the project was “not a disaster” after floods destroyed a 60,000- ton corn crop in September 2011, he said.

The company has already secure loan from unidentified fund and the money will be advanced by the end of April and invested in Ethiopian projects as well as Kenyan flower farms, according to Karuturi.

The project to grow and process crops including cereals, sugar, palm oil and vegetables has “good support” from senior Ethiopian officials, Karuturi said. The leasing of an …

ESLSE to Introduce SMS Notification Service for Importers

The Ethiopian Shipping & Logistics Services Enterprises has installed a new automated notification software that will help to notify customers of the arrival of goods at the dry port, via text message. The software, called CTTS, will automatically send a text message to customers after registering the arrival of the shipments into the ESLSE system.

The Enterprise has been provided with a dedicated server by ethio-telecom, for this particular service. The state owned enterprises are working on a deal for monthly service fees, in order to launch the system within few weeks time.

This is one of a series of actions the Enterprise has taken to provide cargo tracking information, following complaints from customers about the whereabouts of their shipments. Such complaints were especially rampant after problem in the Multi-modal Transport System which caused congestion and delays in the delivery of shipments.

Lac…