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Petit Cadeau (small gift)

Petit Cadeau (small gift)

(right) Catherine Colonna, French foreign minister, Semereta Sewasew, state minister for Finance, Roland Kobia, EU ambassador (left). The French Development Agency granted 28 million euros to Ethiopia for agricultural assistance and electric facility restoration at the French Embassy last week.  Ethiopia's agricultural sector contributes 80pc of exports and 40pc of the domestic GDP. Coffee is the number cultivated crop, followed by pulses and khat. The sector employs close to 70pc of the labour force, according to data from the ILO. Agriculture has been the ground for political revolutions 'land to the tiller' and will offshoot economic revolution if managed right.

Radar

Electricity Bills Get the VAT Jolt

The new Value Added Tax (VAT) has begun implementation on electricity consumption and various service fees affecting customers who use more than 200 kilowatt hours of electricity per month. Based on a directive from the Ministry of Finance, the tax will be applied to the excess amount of electricity consumption above 200 kilowatt hours. The Ethiopian Electric Utility (EEU) began implementing the VAT on bills starting from November though both prepaid and postpaid customers will have to pay VAT a...

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Radar

World Bank Greases Financial Overhaul

The World Bank approved 700 million dollars in credit from the International Development Association (IDA) to scale up support for the financial sector. The funds are targeted at modernizing the regulatory and supervisory framework of the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), supporting governance reforms, balance sheet restructuring, and recapitalization of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE), and transforming the Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE) into a sustainable development finance institutio...

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Radar

Gadaa Bank Expands Reach, Faces Lending Constraints

Gadaa Bank closed its first full fiscal year of operations with a net profit of 90.2 million Br. The 18-month-old Bank held its annual general assembly at Millenium Hall on Africa Avenue last week where the board announced that during the year, the Bank opened 15 branches and now has 85 operational branches. “Due to recently enacted policy measures on credit by NBE and unmet resource mobilization during the fiscal year, the Bank was unable to make loan disbursements,” stated Wolde Bulto,...

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