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CREDIT AND DEVICES FOR THE MASSES

CREDIT AND DEVICES FOR THE MASSES

Neway Magersa (Left), president of Sinqee Bank, shared a lighter moment at the Skylight Hotel on Africa Avenue and chuckled with Oromia Regional State senior official Addisu Arega and Ethio telecom's Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Frehiwot Tamiru. Th...

Apr 26 , 2025

Fortune News

Bound by Duty, Lawyers Fight for Fair Pay in Free Legal Aid Battle

Key Takeaways: The Ministry of Justice's directive plans to enforce pro bono work among private lawyers. Lawyers can claim a one percent fee on successful cases with awards exceeding five mill...

Apr 28 , 2025

Money Market Watch

Birr on the Rocks as Forex Auctions Chase Ghosts of Stability

Key Takeaways The Birr has been persistently weakening against the US dollar, despite changes in foreign exchange policy. Discrepancies between the NBE's auction prices and commercial banks...

Apr 27 , 2025

News Analysis

Sidama Bank's Bold Start into Commercial Banking Meets a Tough Reality

Key Takeaways: Sidama Bank's assets surged to 2.62 billion Br by 2023/24, doubling from the prior year. Operational costs and branch expansion pressed profitability; net profit halved to 27...

Apr 27 , 2025

Latest Updates

Addis Abeba Officials Backtrack After Uproar Jolts Property Owners

A controversial decision to clear a large tract of land in Addis Abeba's Wereda 1, around Flamingo a...

Apr 27 , 2025

BGI Ethiopia Wins Legal Battle as Ownership Claim Falls to Time

Key Takeaways A federal court dismissed Zewdinesh Getahun's ownership claim as time-barred, r...

Apr 27 , 2025

Cash Starved Domestic Drugmakers Turn to EIC for a Lifeline

Key Takeaways: Ethiopian drug makers are seeking unconditional guarantees from the state-owne...

Apr 27 , 2025

Agenda

In the Shadows of Renewal, a Generation Struggles to Find Its Place

Takeaways: Hana Melaku's story demonstrates the personal turmoil within the broader issue of mass relocation in Addis Abeba. Overcrowded classrooms and stretched resources impede the quality of education for students. Despite high enro...

Apr 27 , 2025

A Holiday of Uneasy Choices

Takeaways: The Addis Abeba market faces logistical challenges with fewer livestock trucks arriving compared to previous years. Rising costs affect not...

Apr 19 , 2025

Trenches of Tax Turmoil

Key Takeaways: Merkato's bustling trade shows signs of a slowdown, manifesting deeper economic anxieties affecting merchants and shoppers alike. Trade...

Apr 13 , 2025

OPEN FOR AD

Editorial

Policymakers Trudge Down a Path of Punitive Taxation

Benjamin Franklin famously quipped that “nothing is certain but death and taxes.” Yet, when taxes themselves threaten economic life, policymakers should reconsider their methods. Ethiopia's leaders seem keen to test this grim hypothesis, relen...

Apr 26 , 2025

Overseas Job Push Evokes Hopes at Home, Hardship Abroad

Mufariat Kamil, the minister of Labour & Skills, recently told Parliament that her Ministry had created 3.4 million new domestic jobs in nine months of the current fiscal year. She also touted an annual target of sending 833,333 workers overseas. Official...

Apr 20 , 2025

Officials Bank on Student Service to Patch a Fractured Country

The federal government will soon require one year of national service from university students, which education officials have dubbed "Ethiopia University Service." Four-year students will serve after their third year, and five-year students after their fourth...

Apr 13 , 2025

Exclusive Interview

Legacy Businesses in a Liminal Era

At first light in Addis Abeba's Qality District, the smell of freshly roasted Yirgacheffe beans drifts into the yeasty haze from Shoa Bakery's ovens, a blend that sums up Ethiopia's family firms. Such outfits are scarce everywhere, yet in Ethiopia, roughly 40pc are run by second-generation heirs and...

Apr 19 , 2025

The Roast of Resilience Brews in Bloodline

When her father died suddenly in 2008, Heleanna Georgalis found herself at the helm of Moplaco Trading Plc, a venerable coffee company founded in 1897 during Emperor Menelik's reign. Thrust into leadership amid profound grief, she had to steer the uncharted...

Apr 19 , 2025

Ink, Blood and Family Bonds Shape a Quiet Printing Empire

Chamber Printing House Plc was established in 1965 by Asfaw Tefera and Tiruwork Mengistu. Asfaw, then a diplomat at the Ethiopian Embassy in Lagos, Nigeria, spent his spare time in a friend's printery and caught the printing bug. With a 4,000 Br loan he set...

Apr 19 , 2025

OPEN FOR AD

Viewpoint

Promises of Prosperity Fade as Economic Reforms Fuel Plight

Since 2018, Ethiopia has pursued an ambitious economic transformation under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD), who promised prosperity through broad economic policy reforms. Despite optimistic rhetoric, the results have proven more worrisome than transformative. Rampant inflation, acute foreign currency shortages, mounting external debt, and a frequently shifting regulatory environment have cast dou...

Apr 27 , 2025

Public Purpose Meets Private Initiative in the Battle to Fix Society's Fragility

These are times of economic uncertainties, political polarisation, deep-rooted social inequalities, and ongoing public health crises. They are problems demanding more innovative and collaborative approaches. Governments alone can no longer shoulder the full bu...

Apr 26 , 2025

The Global South Will Pay for Trump's Trade War

US President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs have unleashed economic chaos, roiling stock and bond markets and triggering panic around the world, especially in lower-income countries that rely heavily on exports to the United States (US). The result could be a...

Apr 19 , 2025

My Opinion

The Activism Gets Funded But Not the Women Beneficiaries

Gender activism has become so well-funded that it can almost afford to forget its original purpose. Over the past decade, international NGOs and donor-funded programs working on women's empowerment have grown dramatically. Yet, despite substantial financial investment and widespread visibility, deep-rooted structural barriers to gender equality remain essentially unchanged. Many of the issues c...

Apr 26 , 2025

They Call Her "Family". But They Pay Her in Silence

Before dawn breaks, they are at work. They stoke charcoal fires before the call to prayer, setting meals in motion so the rest of the household can wake to warm food. By the time school bags are packed and the gates open, many domestic workers have already log...

Apr 20 , 2025

Classrooms Shouldn't Become Coffins for Dreams

A country where over one third of its population is under the age of 30, Ethiopia faces a quiet crisis in education, threatening the future of millions. Schools, intended as places of growth, are increasingly becoming necropoleis of potential. Measures taken t...

Apr 13 , 2025

Featured

From Cassette, CD Dreams to Cloud Streams

Key Takeaways Kuku Sebsibie's transition to digital singles represents a shift in the domestic music industry. The Ethiopian streaming market is projected to grow, with revenues expected to reach 7.1 million dollars by 2027. Established artists benefit more from digital platforms, while mid-tier musicians face a financial crunch. The youth and the diaspora play crucial roles in the digital engagement and consumption of Ethiopian music. Artists like Kuku are leveraging new me...

Apr 19 , 2025

Commentaries

Why African Leadership Matters in Geoengineering

As climate disasters proliferate and intensify, interest has grown in solar radiation modification (SRM), a group of large-scale interventions to lower global temperatures by increasing the amount of sunlight reflected away from Earth. To be clear, the risks and benefits of SRM remain uncertain. But that is all the more reason to design a thoughtful policy approach to these emerging and controversial geoengineering technologies. This is particularly true in Africa, where SRM efforts could hav...

Apr 26 , 2025

News Analysis

Sidama Bank's Bold Start into Commercial Banking Meets a Tough Reality

Key Takeaways: Sidama Bank's assets surged to 2.62 billion Br by 2023/24, doubling from the prior year. Operational costs and branch expansion pressed profitability; net profit halved to 27.1 million Br. Substantial growth in deposits signals rising customer trust, posing both opportunities and risks. The Bank's strategic focus on low-risk lending and export sectors presents potential, yet requires diversification. Operational efficiencies, digital adoption, and partnership st...

Apr 27 , 2025

Delicate Number

8,000,000,000

The annual revenues (in dollars) that the Ethiopian Airlines Group anticipates making by June 2025, representing a 14.29pc increase from the previous year.

Apr 26 , 2025

Fineline

Leaders of the National . . .

Leaders of the National Election Board are in a charm offensive mood, of a sort. Last week, they organised a rare tour for members of the media, showcasing what polling stations will look like during the upcoming national elections; and they took the...

Oct 3 , 2020

Verbatim

"My company has employees who helped it grow without their lives improving much."

Belayneh Kindie, a business mogul and chairperson of the Belayneh Kindie Group (BKG), told Arts TV, crediting his employees as a source of his wealth.

View From Arada

The Ararat Connection

You don't need to travel to Old Jerusalem to know that its quarters are clearly marked: Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Armenian. The last, while Christian, stands apart: home to the Armenian Apostolic Church and a community that has preserv...

Apr 26 , 2025

Films Review

Nope

Few would have imagined that the Peele in Key & Peele, a show on MTV's Comedy Central, would become a world-class director reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock and David Fincher. There is a sketch from Key & Peele, titled Town Hall Audience Member, one of the funniest outputs of the show, where Jordan Peele shows some promise as he acts entirely with his eyes to peak comedic effect. Other than that, at least to this author's eyes, there is nothing to indicate cinematic genius or even a great...

Sep 17 , 2022

RRR: PEAK OF BOLLYWOOD, FOR BETTER OR WORSE

Bollywood has finally peaked. The sentimentalism, chirpy musical numbers, physics-defying fight scenes and aggressively cheesy romantic plots have all come into their own in RRR, one of the biggest Bollywood hits in recent memory to gain an international audience. I would normally object to individual elements of the movie, including its ludicrous storyline and plot holes. But the way they have come together is strangely fascinating. RRR, which is short for “Rise, Roar, Revolt" and must be...

Sep 10 , 2022

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Fortune Video

Sunday With Eden

When the Lens Crosses a Line

Over two years ago, on our first wedding anniversary, my husband and I wanted to do something meaningful. We decided to recreate our wedding as a quiet celebration of love, growth, and everything in between with our first child growing inside me. We spared no expense. We hired one of the most sought-after photographers in town, paying nearly 300,000 Br to preserve this moment in time. We stood...

Apr 26 , 2025

The Rose-Tinted Trap of Nostalgia

In almost every conversation, I hear people mention “the good old days.” The phrase slips in like a sigh, usually when someone's facing difficulty. It acts as comfort, a way to escape the discomfort of the present by romanticizing the past. People often...

Apr 19 , 2025

Grace Over Grind

Over the weekend, I attended a women's gathering that quietly reshaped how I think about balance, ambition, motherhood, and the kind of life I want to build. The speaker did not deliver a typical keynote. She simply told her story – and in doing so, taught m...

Apr 13 , 2025

Life Matters

The House That Deceit Built

A strange paradox continues to surface: what might happen if lying were to vanish entirely from human life? If all communication were filtered through unrelenting, unvarnished truth, the initial impression might be one of clarity. Yet, such a world could quickly descend into a form of chaos more destabilizing than the intricate web of deceit currently navigated. The soothing fictions and gentle ev...

Apr 26 , 2025

The Weight of Things

That sudden, almost irrational urge to deep clean the house always seems to arrive unannounced. Everything is calm one moment; the next, there is a compulsion to haul out mops and buckets like a military operation. That was the mood the other day – driven by...

Apr 19 , 2025

The Awkward Art of Saying Hello

Living side by side with others – sharing walls, staircases, even the same unreliable electricity – should make greetings feel natural. A simple “hello” seems like the least we could offer one another. And yet, I often find myself hesitating. Despite m...

Apr 13 , 2025

Radar

Addis Abeba Becomes Home to Boeing's Africa Office

Boeing has confirmed Ethiopia as the location for its new African headquarters, ending speculation that Kenya or South Africa might host the strategic expansion. This move reflects Boeing's commitment to deepening its footprint and operational capacity across Africa. The decision builds on a 2023 joint venture between Boeing and the local industry to manufacture airplane parts. This partnership...

Apr 27 , 2025

Ethiopias Capital Market Sets Sights on Talent Strategy

A new strategy to strengthen the human capital foundation of Ethiopia's emerging capital market is taking shape. Led by FSD Ethiopia in partnership with iCapital Africa Institute and the Nairobi Securities Exchange, the initiative is focused on building the skills, expertise, and institutional capacity needed to support the Ethiopian Capital Market Authority (ECMA). The second round of consulta...

Apr 27 , 2025

In Picture

SWEET ESCAPE

In the quiet Qera Ox Market, a young man shoulders bundles of sugar cane, each cut to size and priced just right. In a place where the same questions bounce around like a broken record and sweet drinks are as rare and pricey, as treasure, he shows up like a sugary Santa Claus, handing out little bundles of joy to sweeten even the dullest day. His sugar cane isn't just a treat, it's a tiny escape,...

Apr 27 , 2025

WHEEL TREND

Bridging eras on two wheels — at the entrance of Bole Mini, across from Millennium Hall, a new generation is catching the cycling wave. With smartphones in hand and digital IDs ready, young riders log into the Addis Bike app to rent bicycles for just five cents an hour, cruising as far as Denbel Shopping Centre to then return it to one of the four bike stations in town. Bike lanes meet bold futu...

Apr 27 , 2025