Finance Investing News - Ethiopian News

By Staff Reporter

December 11, 2019 (Ezega.com) -- The World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) have decided to provide a total of $6 billion to support the recently introduced homegrown economic reform in Ethiopia, a senior official disclosed.

Briefing journalists on Wednesday, Ethiopian State Minister of Finance Dr. Eyob Tekalegn said the global financial institutions have agreed to provide $6 billion to Ethiopia in the next three months, which represents 60 percent of the total $10 billion needed to execute the economic reform.

“The government has been engaged in resource mobil

June 16, 2019 (Ezega.com) -- The Ethiopian parliament is discussing a new bill meant to allow foreign nationals of Ethiopian origin to engage in the banking and financial services sector, according to the Ethiopian Reporter.

The new bill will amend the existing, restrictive banking and financial services proclamation, according to the report.

The bill has been tabled before the House of People’s Representatives (HPR) for approval.

The existing law bars Ethiopian-born Diasporas with foreign passports from opening banks, subsidiaries, or acquire shares in Ethiopian banks.

Last year, foreign nationals of Ethiopian origin

February 5, 2019 (Ezega.com) - According to a statement by the Minister of Mines and Petroleum, Samuel Urkato, Ethiopia is in the final stages of reforming the underdeveloped oil and mining industries. In the next two months, it will have finalized everything as the country hopes to attract more foreign investors.

Regarding the changes instituted, the government has already cut taxes for mining companies as the government aims to ease the dollar deficiency in the country. Urkato said promoting the sector is a priority for the country and they’ll further adopt other tax incentives.

Mining

January 7, 2018 - Samuel Tafesse the founder of  Sunshine Construction announced plans to build a solar park in Ethiopia. “At the moment, we are exploring opportunities in power generation,” the 60-year old entrepreneur told Forbes Africa. “I wouldn’t want to give away too much but we have currently teamed up with Globeleq – one of Africa’s leading power companies to establish a 100 MW IPP solar park in Ethiopia," said Samuel.

Ethiopia has begun to embrace solar energy as an option to address its surging energy needs and also as a means to cut soaring energy costs as it aspire

December 20, 2017 - Ethiopia signed an agreement to build two geothermal power plants at a combined cost of $4 billion, to be run by the country’s first privately-owned utility.The Corbetti and Tulu Moye plants will produce a combined 1,000 MW of power upon completion in eight years time in the volcanically-active Rift Valley in southern Ethiopia.  As Ethiopia’s first privately-owned utility, the project will be operated by the developers for a period of 25 years.

Ethiopia is eager to meet rising energy demand from its industries as well as becoming the continent’s biggest exporter of energy.

“No

December 14, 2017 - Ethiopian centeral bank, National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), has issued a new rule for banks regarding approving of letters of credit (LC). The new directive dictates that Ethiopian banks should use the given price of items when allocating hard currency. In other words, the LC amount should correspond to the actual price of the to be imported items.

As it stands, importers are not under obligation to submit the price of the imported items at exporting countries market. Thus importers would ask for hard currency for some amount at banks and fill the rest from different sources; mainly from parallel sources or black markets.

November 30, 2017 - The National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) has issued new directives on foreign currency related issues to promote foreign direct investment and export, reports FBC. NBE Foreign Exchange Director, Yenehasab Tadesse revelaed this during a dialogue organized by the Ethiopian Investment Commission on foreign currency and immigration related issues.

According to Yenehasab, the bank has issued a directive to all banks to allocate 40 percent of their foreign currency to priority sectors. The priority sectors can also obtain up to 60 percent external loan and sub-price credit that allow investors to get machinery and equipment from abroad.

November 24, 2017 - Ethiopia’s government has collected 63 billion Birr from tax in the first quarter of the current fiscal year, disclosed the Ethiopian Revenue and Customs Authority (ERCA).According to Moges Balcha, Director General of ERCA, the tax collected had missed the target set for the period at the beginning of the current fiscal year, 72 billion Birr. The target for the fiscal year was 230 billion Birr, he added.

It was only 60 percent of the entire 16,000 taxpayers that reported profit that presented their taxable income, Moges added. Around 28 percent of these taxpayers, reported loss, he furthered.

November 2, 2017 - Following the devaluation of Ethiopian birr by 15 percent, the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) issued a directive for commercial banks to channel all the windfall earnings they generated from the sale of foreign currencies to the central bank.

Ethiopian commercial banks believe the directive could harm them, but NBE says it will help stabilize the economy.

Some experts argue that the move by the NBE to take all windfall earnings from them is not reasonable.

On the other hand, NBE told commercial banks to reduce the amount of loan they give for local purposes, except for the export trade.

At the beginning of the

October 7, 2017 - The National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) will begin trading bonds in the secondary market this Ethiopian fiscal year (2017/18), reports FBC.The plan was delayed by two years because of failure to conclude the necessary studies at the required time, according to Dr Yohannes Ayalew, vice governor of NBE. As the system is new to Ethiopia, the preparation period took more time than expected.

“However, since all the necessary reparations are completed now, we will begin it this Ethiopian fiscal year,” he said.

Dr Yohannes said the scheme will increase the demand of the people for bonds, create opportuniti

September 19, 2017 - Ethiopia’s southern city, Hawassa, has become top in terms of creating jobs from foreign direct investment in the first half of 2017, fDi Intelligence reveals. The Ethiopian city has created 6,546 jobs during the specific period putting it at the top among Middle East and African countries, according to fDi Intelligence.
 
The Hawassa industrial park, which started operation four months ago, has helped the town to create more jobs.
 
The park, which is the largest apparel and textile park in Africa, is expected to employ 60,000 Ethiopians upon fully operational.
 

September 12, 2017 - In unprecedented move, the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) directed all of the private banks to sell 15 million dollar worth of foreign currency to Ethiopian Shipping Logistics Services Enterprise (ESLSE) to cover port payments to Djibouti, according to Ethiopian English weekly newspaper Addis Fortune.

The money will be used to pay the debt of the Enterprise for the port of Djibouti. The order comes amidst the shortage of foreign exchange throughout Ethiopia, which put businesses in a tight situation, and a decline in Ethiopia’s export earnings and remittance, which are the primary source of foreign curren

July 22, 2017 - The Development Bank of Ethiopia has finally got the go-ahead from the National Bank of Ethiopia to establish a company which will mainly deal with management of assets under its ownership, according to the Reporter.

The bank has been in consultation with the central bank as well as the Ministry of Trade to get the permission for this service.

The new company, which is called Ethiopian Capital and Investment PLC, has been established with a capital of 10 million birr, where DBE owns 99.9 percent of the company.

This has come following DBE’s legal and institutional limitation to administer factories and companies

July 22, 2017 - Toyota Tsusho Corporation, a Japanese company, globally known in automotive manufacturing, has targeted Ethiopia as its new African destination in the coming few years, according to the Reporter.
 
Yoshihiko Yokoi, vice president of Toyota Corporation, who is also chairman of Japanese Association of Corporate Executives, told The Reporter that Ethiopia will be the next destination for the company he is leading and for other Japanese investors, as well.
 
As a startup, Toyota has already finalized a deal to joint venture with another Japanese company and enter the Ethiopian market, the vice president tol

July 18, 2017 - The government of Ethiopia announced that revenue from privatization has grown by 5 folds. By the beginning of the fiscal year, the Ethiopian Ministry of Public Enterprises (MoPE’s) plan was to collect 2.11 billion Birr from privatization; however, according MoPE’s latest report it has earned 12.6 billion Birr during the period. The performance was the highest Ethiopia ever saw.

According to Wondafrash Assefa, public relations head of Ethiopian Ministry of Public Enterprises, the difference in the target and performance was due to the fact that the deals were unpredictable. “They are already under a joint

July 18, 2017 - KEFI Minerals, London-listed gold and copper deposits exploration and Development Company, has agreed a finance package for the construction of its gold mine project in Ethiopia. The new agreement is expected to augment Ethiopia’s gold production. Gold is Ethiopia's main mineral export and has been mined since ancient times, primarily as alluvial or free gold. At present, Ethiopia has a single large-scale gold mine, Lega Dembi, in the southern area of the country, owned by Midroc (98%) and the Ethiopian government (2%).

KEFI’s Tulu Kapi project in the South western part of Ethiopia has a probable Ore Reserve of 1.0 million ounc

June 19, 2017 - Ethiopia plans to increase Foreign Direct Investment by 10 times from the 3.2 billion dollars recorded in 2016, said a government official on Friday.

The statement was made by Arkebe Oqubay, Special Advisor to Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, explaining the reasoning behind the country's infrastructure spending spree.

Ethiopia is currently building road, rail, air and higher education infrastructure to meet that goal.

Oqubay was speaking on the sidelines of an event in Addis Ababa promoting the planned grand production inauguration on June 18 of the Hawassa Industrial Park (HIP), located 275 km south of

April 10, 2017 - The World Bank has extended 645 million USD in the form of loan for the implementation of development projects in Ethiopia, according to ENA.

The fund will finance activities aimed at enhancing water supply and sanitation services, improve efficiency of trade and logistics infrastructures as well as quality assurance.

Of the total amount, 445 million USD will be used to enhance water supply and sanitation services in the capital Addis Ababa and 22 cities across the country.

The project is aimed at scaling up water supply and sanitation services in the cities is expected to impr

April 2, 2017 - The National Bank of Ethiopia has slightly changed a directive which was introduced a year ago to regulate allocation of foreign currency exchange (forex) in a transparent manner, according to the Reporter.

The amended directive, like the old one, focuses on allocating forex on first-come, first-serve basis. It repeals the tradition in the banking industry where exporters were allowed to gain better access of forex currency.

The latest directive has modified the way application registration is reported to the national bank. According to the amended directive, each bank shall send the foreig

February 17, 2017 - The Ministry of Mines, Petroleum and Natural Gas issued a license to MSP Steel & Power Ltd., an India-based company, in small scale mining production in Oromia regional state.

The Ministry licensed the company to engage in the extraction of minerals in West Arsi Zone of Oromia regional state for a period of 10 years, the Ministry told ENA.

According to the contract agreement, the company is expected to extract 1.5 million kilo grams of magnetite and Ilmenite on an area of 10.2429 square meters.

The license can be renewed for a period of not more than 5 years upon the request