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Al-Amoudi to enter the telecom business By Groum Abate The Ethiopian business mogul Sheik Mohammed al-Amoudi, yet again with his long investment arm, is seeking to enter the telecom business, which will be a new sector among his enterprise in Ethiopia, in addition to new gemstone development and agro processing industry ventures. Sources told Capital that the tycoon had had his proposal submitted some months ago to the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation and is presently negotiating to enter the booming mobile phones business. According to our sources, the tycoon has proposed to be a private mobile operator with some restrictions. Representatives of the Sheik and the corporation are under negotiation on the details. If the negotiations succeed he will be the first and only private mobile operator. The government owned ETC currently has a monopoly. Gemstone The Sheik is also going to hire expatriates to study gemstone reserves in the country, Capital learned. The gemstone feasibility study would mainly be done in Oromia region but includes other regional states sources told Capital. These sources said that the expatriates would look for possible gemstone extraction areas that have potential around the country. According to our sources these expatriates would come here shortly to assess areas with potentials in the coming few months and the company will start large scale extraction of gemstones. Agro processing industry al-Amoudi has also secured a place for building an agro processing industry in Sebeta area, Oromia Regional State recently. The area around Sebeta is secured from the regional state. The industry to be set up is going to deal with the supply, processing and distribution of farm products. It was reported that the Sheik would invest over two billion birr in Oromia in the agro processing industry, gemstone and tourism sectors. He is also going to start the construction of a five star hotel in Boku area, Oromia Regional State. The hotel construction along with agro processing industries and gemstone development would be located in Oromia Regional State, where he signed an investment agreement with the region two years ago. These sources added that an office is being set up by the business tycoon to look after his investments in Oromia. al-Amoudi invested more than 1.5 billion dollars in various investment fields in the country. His investments lie in many fields, including construction, real estate, manufacturing, mining, and services such as hotels, engineering and gas distribution. Born in Wello, al-Amoudi is worth 6.9 billion dollars. al-Amoudi with his investment hand MIDROC-Ethiopia, presently operates close to 45 enterprises such as Sheraton Addis, Midroc Construction Ethiopia, Moha Soft Drinks S.C., National Mining Corp., National Motor Companies, Ethio Leather Industries (ELICO) P.L.C., Elfora Agro-Industries P.L.C., Bauer-Midroc, Sara Lamps, Ethio Coffee & Tea Plantation & Marketing P.L.C. and Kombolcha Steel Products Industry (KOSPI), to name a few. MIDROC is also the largest private employer in the country with tens of thousands of employees. |
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Tuesday
6 , 2006
