Dubbed as “a frontier for exploration in Africa” by Richard Chase, CEO of Nyota Minerals Ltd, the British minerals giant, Ethiopia is getting preeminence in the mining sector and has become a destination for big multinational mining companies. 252 companies had so far taken mining license, according to the Ministry. The sector was also able to earn 1.5 billion dollar during the first half of the growth and transformation plan. Most of these earnings came from gold, ornamental stones and tantalum.
During the Christmas holiday exhibition at the Addis Ababa Exhibition Center one thing was visible- the presence of quite a number of Syrian exhibitors. The Syrians were trading from textile to jewelry and housing appliances. And most of them were pleased with the business.
Kifiya Financial Technology PLC, the company behind the unified billing system project, is set to make close to 2 billion birr revenue in three and half years, the expected life span of the first phase of the project. The company announced on January 17 that preparation has been finalized to commence operation next month. The project is implemented by the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT), the three utility companies: Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation, ethio telecom and Addis Ababa Water and Sewage Authority, and Kifiya Financial Technology PLC.
Yonas Gebrekidan 38, whose name has been changed, is one of the printer cartridge importers in Addis Ababa. He has been doing this business for the past five years. As the business has been expanding, he has lately opened shops in regional towns. But recently, his business has been seriously challenged. “Business has come to a ground halt” he said. “The banks have not been allowing enough foreign currency to import the necessary materials we need.”
A diagnosis on the corruption level of eight selected sectors in Ethiopia was made public on January 13, by the World Bank. The study which was done in collaboration with the Federal Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (FEACC), follows a sectoral approach citing its easiness to understand and focus as a reason. Dubbed as keen to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) sectors that were included in the study contains: health, education, water, justice, construction, land, telecommunications and mining. These sectors are categorized in three groups called basic service sector, old investment sectors and new sectors, based on their service and time of establishment have shown mixed results in the study.
Addisu Menegesha, 29, posed for a photo infront of a white board at Esmile Internet Café in Autobis Tera district of the capital, Addis Ababa.
Addisu was having his picture taken for an electronic form to enter a United States Government run visa lottery program. In this lottery program, commonly known as Diversity Visas (DV), people worldwide enter their applications online. US officials say a computer-generated, random lottery drawing picks the winners.
Giuliano Montaldo, born in 1930, is the anthropomorphic transliteration of legend and law. Some refer to him as the “Lion King” of Italian cinema; still able to scratch, stun and roar like few others today. In the Film L’industriale (The Entrepreneur), Montaldo portrays a modernistic socio-economic and emotional crisis using classical staging.
The characters, Nicola and Laura, along with their friends and family come to life and struggle to go out from the dilemma of Eurozone’s economic crises and its consequences that stretched from Nicola’s inherited factory to his private life at home. Nicola, on the brink of bankruptcy, inherited a factory in Turin from his father at the age of 40.
In the first issue of this magazine, I have attempted to present the political economy of policy making in Africa and the implication of that for private sector development in the continent. This was based on a recent study by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UN ECA) study. In this issue, I will finalize the commentary by highlighting the empirical evidence about the implications of policies designed in such a manner on private investment in the continent using the same study. The ECA study is an attempt to examine the impact of macroeconomic policies and investment climate for private investment in Africa. Based on this analysis, the study attempts to draw lessons so as to come up with policy implications that could help to strengthen the role of private investment in Africa As I have noted above, the ECA study commenced by showing that macro policy in Africa is generally informed by the political economy of policy making which I have briefly summarized in the last issue.
EMPRETEC Ethiopia Business Society (EEBS), a society established in 1996, organized a half day workshop at the UN ECA to mark “The Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW)” for the second time, last November in Ethiopia. GEW is celebrated around the world with activities aimed at promoting the culture of Entrepreneurship. It is an initiative by former British Premier Gordon Brown and Carl Schramm (PhD), a Professor at Syracuse University of USA, who was once named by The Economist Magazine as the “evangelist of entrepreneurship.”
The Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group, which runs the Radisson Blu Hotels, appointed Christopher Pike, a British citizen who had been serving as General Manager of the Radisson Blu Hotel in Birmingham since June 2010 as its General Manager for its Hotel in Addis Ababa. Christopher Pike replaced Guillaume Massiera who has been running the hotel since February 2010. Massiera has left to establish his own business.
