Executives of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) plan to disburse over 100 billion Br in loans by the end of the fiscal year. The amount is nearly equivalent to the total value of loans disbursed and bonds sold over by the state-owned giant last year. The Bank made the announcement following the lifting of the central bank's embargo on collateralized loans at the end of November, nearly four months after it was first enforced. The CBE targets to provide 25 billion Br in loans to the private sector, 30 billion Br for agricultural inputs, and the balance to state-owned enterprises. The Sugar Corporation requested over 11 billion Br in loans from the CBE last month. Last week, the Bank launched a series of e-commerce platforms for booking and payments in the hospitality industry in collaboration with EagleLion, a technology systems provider established last year. Among these is a hotel bidding platform that organisations and clients can use to float tenders for hotel reservation and conference services.