Ethio Lease to Mechanise Agricultural Sector

Feb 29 , 2020

Ethio Lease, the first foreign-owned leasing company, will start leasing agricultural equipment to farmer mechanisation centres. The MoU was signed by Sani Redi, state minister for Agriculture, Chimbo Anchala (PhD), senior director at the Agricultural Transformation Agency, and Girma Wake, board chairperson of Ethio Lease, at a ceremony held at the Ministry on February 28, 2020. Ethio Lease, a subsidiary of Africa Asset Finance Company Inc. (AAFC), headquartered in the United States, aims to provide capital goods for agriculture, healthcare, energy, food processing and manufacturing, among others. It formed 10 mechanisation centres for the pilot phase, and the collaborative agreement has the potential to increase that number to over 60 centres in the coming two to three years, according to Girma Wake, CEO of Ethio Lease, which started operations in August 2019. Ethio Lease will be providing over 150 million dollars worth of agricultural equipment to ultimately support smallholder farmers, with support from the Ministry and ATA. To date, Ethio Lease has signed 46 lease agreements and delivered nine tractors to farmers at the end of last week.