Hijra Open for Business

Sep 4 , 2021


The country's second full-fledged interest-free bank opened its doors on September 4, 2021, at its head office in the Bole Olympia neighbourhood on Democratic Republic of Congo Street. The Bank acquired the property, which lies on 3,000sqm of land, for 130 million Br in April this year, and plans to open 11 additional branches across Addis Abeba and elsewhere in the coming months. Hijra is starting operations with 700 million Br in paid-up capital of 1.2 billion Br subscribed from 10,000 shareholders, following in the footsteps of ZamZam Bank, which began operating a few months ago. Last month, Hijra inked a deal with Path Solutions, a sharia-compliant banking solution provider operating in several countries across the world, to acquire a core banking platform.


Radar

LOFTY CONSTRUCTS

A painting depicts traditional farming equipment at the Science Museum around the Arat Kilo area. Since the seizing of power by the current administration, large-scale architectural projects marked by grandeur have proliferated across the capital. The satellite city being built in the Yeka mountains, which is set to cost around 600 billion Br, according to the Prime Minister, is one such project yet to see the light of day. Some estimates put the plot size for the project at around 503hct despit...


Radar

CLEAN BILL

A queue for diagnostics at the nation's largest state-owned hospital, Black Lion. As the health sector is largely funded by development partners from abroad, decreased support as donors shied away due to the war in the North has required the suspension of several new projects. Social health Insurance slated for next year was scraped due to a budgetary shortfall of five billion Birr. With the physician-to-patient ratio titering at around 1:30,000, queues in public hospitals are commonplace in Eth...


Radar

ACRID GROUNDS

A street vendor puts up pepper for sale around the Lideta area. With agricultural produce accounting for the largest share of the nation's GDP at around 40pc, setbacks in the delivery of fertilizer have become a source of strife in rural Ethiopia. Only a third of the scheduled fertilizer of 1.3 million quintals has been distributed into the hands of farmers this year. This is despite the year being one in which the government claims to have met local demand for wheat and started exporting. Low p...