The Ethiopia Commodity Exchange Authority (ECEA) suspended the membership of Chay Trading and Services Plc, a coffee trading member of the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX), for six months, due to failure to sustain the minimum net assets required of an Exchange member.

A member is required to have net assets totalling one million Br, according to a directive issued by the Authority as well as the code of the Exchange. This is to ensure that they have the financial capability to handle transactions as an intermediary for their non-member clients and can deliver their products to the market as promised, according to officials from the Authority.

Ethiopia has completed a power transmission line that links its power grid with neighbouring Sudan, state Electric and Power Corporation (EEPCO) announced.

Funded by the World Bank, the $41 million dollar power project, will now enable Ethiopia to export an initial 100 MW of electricity to Sudan making Khartoum the second beneficiary next to Djibouti which imports 35 MW of electricity and in return pays Ethiopia up to $1.5 million every month.

In an effort to move beyond just coffee, Ethiopia now exports leather, vegetables, flowers, and yes, the occasional bottle of wine. Castel's vineyard in southern Ethiopia, which plans to produce 750,000 bottles of wine, mostly for export. Wine is just one of many premium exports - including flowers, vegetables, leather goods, and coffee - bolstering Ethiopia's economy, one of the fastest growing in Africa. Ethiopia is looking to diversify its economy by exporting premium products in addition to raw goods.

The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia is to purchase about 420 Automatic Teller Machines and 600,000 electronic payment cards at an estimated cost of 100 million birr.

Suppliers from China, India and the United states were among those that tendered technical offers to deliver the ATM’s required by the CBE.
Various international brands were represented by local or regional suppliers including CBM, represented by the local SSC, US brand, Diebold represented by Copy Cat, Wincor represented by Hysen Webgate Information Technology, and Axis represented by MFI Solutions amongst many others.

Dashen Brewery, Ethiopia has finalized a deal transferring an estimated 41% of its shares to the British asset manager, Duet group for 90 million US dollars.

Berket Simon, Board Chairman of Tiret Endowment (parent body of Dashen Brewery) signed the deal with Duet officials in London last week.

The first payment for the shares estimated at 60 million US dollars was made at the time the agreement was signed according to sources at the brewery.
Duet will deliver the agreed upon sum in the form of equity from the newly established Duet Beverages Africa Ltd to be managed by the Duet Africa Private Equity team alongside Vasari, an industrial partner sharing the risk of investment according to the statement released by Duet following the agreement.

With the commissioning of Ethiopia’s largest cement plant, Derba MIDROC, today, the once hyper inflated cement industry appears to have factories entering in a cutthroat competition. Executives at Mohammed Al-Amoudi’s Derba MIDROC have already declared price war last week. Bizuayehu Tadelle’s National Cement is on the line to enter into the market in April 2012, making him one of the two cement barons Ethiopia has today

In your recent statement made in Davos, Switzerland, you voiced frustration over how things were going with major countries, which you said are avoiding the multilateral trading platform and focusing on bilateral and regional trade discussions. Why would some countries, mostly in the least developed category, aspire to join the multilateral platform while others are trying to dodge it?

Pascal Lamy: In trade matters, we have a multilateral platform that has been built constantly for the last 60 years. The problem we have in the World Trade Organisation (WTO), now, is not that we do not have a platform, a system and rules that govern multilateral trade, we have that. We administer and follow that every day.

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - After delays lasting several months, Sunshine Construction is close to seal a franchise agreement involving the management of what will become the first Marriott apartment and courtyard hotels in Ethiopia to be built and owned by Sunshine Construction Plc. The company is expected to sign an agreement with Marriott in two months’ time, according to sources.

The presidents of Sudan and South Sudan are meeting in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa to discuss a deepening crisis over sharing their oil wealth

When South Sudan became independent last July, Sudan lost most of its oil.
However, the export pipelines go through Sudan, which has seized some $815m (£520m) in oil revenue, accusing the south of not paying transit fees.
South Sudan last week said it was suspending oil production, accusing Sudan of "stealing" its oil.
The leaders of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia are trying to broker a deal between South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and his Sudanese counterpart - and old enemy - Omar al-Bashir.

UK-based asset management firms Duet Group and Vasari have partnered with the TIRET Group, an Ethiopian endowment fund, in the brewery sector, in what will become the largest private equity investment in Ethiopia to-date.

Duet Group has a made significant investment into Dashen Brewery in the form of an equity injection from the newly-formed Duet Beverages Africa company, which will be managed by the Duet Africa Private Equity team together with Vasari as the company’s industrial partner.

Petrol is already beyond the price range of many Africans while surging population levels should force governments in Asia to limit car use, political and business leaders said Wednesday.

While economic gloom in the Eurozone is the most immediate concern of delegates gathered here for the annual Davos forum, the challenge of feeding and powering an ever expanding planet is the main long-term headache.
As tensions with Iran and Nigeria once more raise fears about oil supplies -- and Japan's Fukushima disaster undermines the appeal of nuclear energy -- titans of politics and industry admit it is time for a radical reappraisal.

Aid is ineffective. By some estimates, more than $2-trillion has been spent fighting poverty since the 1950s, with little direct impact. The stories of failure are illustrated with hydro dams that never worked, crops that never grew and roads that went nowhere.

Entrepreneurs, however, are changing the world. Since 2005, an estimated half-billion people or more have been raised out of poverty, mainly by small business, trade liberalization and gains in productivity. In China, Pakistan, Indonesia and Nigeria, booming local economies, oblivious to the latest schemes of aid programs, are creating millions of jobs.

ADDIS ABABA, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- China and Africa are enjoying very robust relation on win-win basis and the high level Chinese delegation's visit is expected to further strengthen and consolidate the high-level cooperation between China and Ethiopia now, said Meles Zenawi, Ethiopian Prime Minister. In an exclusive interview with journalists of Xinhua News Agency and China Central Television on Monday at his office here, Meles said China has been contributing to Africa's ongoing development and growth by creating market for Africa's products, financing infrastructure on the continent, and by being source of technology and investment among others.

Diageo has acquired Ethiopia's last state-owned brewer, Meta Abo, in a move that will see the Guinness brewer lock horns with Heineken and Castel in Ethiopia's beer market.

Diageo won a bidding round for Meta Abo and has now completed the acquisition of the brewer for US$225m, it said today (10 January). Meta Abo is Ethiopia's second largest brewer, with a volume share of around 15%, behind Castel's beer division, Brasseries & Glacieres Internationales (BGI).
The deal means that competition in Ethiopia's beer market is set to intensify. Last year, Heineken entered the country by winning auctions to acquire state-owned Bedele and Harar breweries for US$85m and $78m respectively.

Two Indian publishers have beaten off stiff international competition to win Ethiopian government contracts worth USD 5.9 million to print and distribute textbooks on six subjects, as also teachers' guides, a trend that has been consistent over the past three years.

Repro Printers and Pitambra Books were among 19 international printing companies that responded to an education ministry tender four months ago to print textbooks in six disciplines -- mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, civics, and ethics.