Two Donors Team Up to Create Jobs

Apr 17 , 2020


Korea’s International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have agreed to support the creation of jobs in Ethiopia, where urban unemployment is at 19pc and 25pc among the youth. The agreement was signed between Dong Ho Kim, country director for KOICA, and Turhan Saleh, UNDP resident representative, in April 2020. The agreement includes 3.3 million dollars from KOICA and a one-million-dollar contribution from UNDP to launch a five-year project focusing on supporting ICT-based business start-ups and SMEs. The project will also facilitate loan guarantee schemes for ICT based start-ups and SMEs to address their financial needs. Previously, UNDP launched the entrepreneurship development programme in 2013 in partnership with the Ministry of Urban Development & Housing and trained over 90,000 entrepreneurs and 32,000 SMEs in the country.


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...


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...


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,...