The recently swapped ultramax vessel is expected to dock its anchor mid this month at Djibouti, Ethiopia’s sea harbor hub, for the first time. The Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics (ESL) newly received huge vessel is currently on its voyage to Europe.
It can be recalled that the effort of ESL to swap its two tankers with a huge vessel was successful with the handing over to the state owned logistics enterprise transpiring on April 25 at a port in Shanghai, China.
According to Demissew Benti, Public Relation Head at ESL, the vessel called MV Abbay II hit the ground running with operations having commenced on May 12, with a voyage to South Korea.
“On its second trip, the biggest vessel ever to be owned by ESL set sail to transport cargo to Vietnam,” the Public Relation Head added.
As Demissew informs Capital, the vessel has now left the Vietnam Phu My Port with steel cargo to the Baltic Sea. Despite ESL not having a regular fleet to Europe, he cited that it has seldom trips when it has a charter cargo.
About two decades ago, the shipping enterprise had a line to Europe, but now its regular fleet flows to Asia.
ESL has taken cross trade business as one of the major source of revenue besides transporting cargo for Ethiopia. In the past and this budget year in particular, cross trade has become expansive and one of the major source of foreign currency for the company.
Recently, ESL disclosed that it has a target to expand its destination for its vessel while the logistics giant has currently 345 international ports destinations.
“We have a target to expand our destination ports to 375,” Demissew said.
The coming of the ultramax vessel is also stated as a key to expand its destination. The enterprise is also on the final stage to order brand new two ultramax vessels from a company in China. As per the deal, the new coming vessels will be a dry carrier with an ultramax type carrying capacity of over 63,000 DWT. In reference, Abbay II has a loading capacity of 65, 000 DWT.
Currently, the nine dry carriers that ESL owns are ‘handysize’ vessels with about 28,000 DWT.
ESL is using other ultramax vessels to transport bulk cargos like fertilizer, coal and wheat to Ethiopia.
“Our new vessel will carry huge bulk cargos like steel, wheat and fertilizer,” the Public Relation Head elaborated.
According to Demissew, Abbay II’s next destination will be Baltic Sea northern Europe with the steel cargo that is loaded at Vietnam.
“We expected that the vessel with 28 crew members will be at the berth in Djibouti on June 15, which will be the first time for the new vessel to come to ESL’s home port,” he said.
“The operation of Abbay II is very promising. It shows that we will attain the goal to expand our port destinations for Ethiopian flag carriers,” he explained, adding, “When we expand the capacity in terms of owning such kind of vessels we will be able to stretch.”
Experts said that the incoming big vessels shall support huge local cargos besides supporting the east African coast up to South Africa and the Indian Gulf, which has a gap on container feeder service.
The vessel that was owned by US company, with a German operator, and registered at Marshall Islands has been stated to be in good condition and was managed by good operator prior to its acquisition. Demissew clarified that if it was bought today, its market value would be at more than USD 28 million.
“Actually the vessel is possessed through the swap of Bahir Dar and Hawassa tanker vessels,” Demissew cited while explaining how the huge cost of purchase was evaded.
Abbay II is seven years old and is fairly a young carrier as experts on the sector explain.
In related development, the management of ESL celebrated the achievement of the long serving former CEO of ESL, Roba Megersa in a warm farewell ceremony held on June 2.

Djibouti port, Ethiopia’s main sea cargo outlet, maintains it status at top position on the World Bank and S&P Global Market Intelligence container port performance index (CPPI) 2022.
The third edition of the CPPI index that was issued two weeks ago placed Djibouti’s container port at the top in terms of statistical and administrative approaches in the sub-Sahara and third in the continent.
The CPPI 2022 this time around only included ports that had a minimum of 24 valid port calls within the 12-month period of the study, compared to 20 in earlier iterations. The number of ports included in the CPPI 2022 was 348 in total.
Djibouti container terminal, SGTD also came in at 26th position in the overall raking of the yearly report that assesses the administrative and performance operations of ports in the world.
The World Bank and S&P Global Market Intelligence pointed out that majority of ports on the continent suffer from the excessive length of loading-unloading cycles, which poses a constant risk of disruption to the supply chain.
Apart from two ports located in North Africa and the port of Djibouti, African port infrastructure is among the worst performing in the world in 2022, according to a report published in the second half of May by the World Bank and S&P Global Market Intelligence.
The Moroccan port of Tanger Med ranked first on an African scale and 4th on a world scale, now up two ranks in the world ranking compared to the 2021 edition of the index.
On the African scale, Tanger Med is followed by Port Said (Egypt), which occupied the 10th position in the world ranking, while the port of Djibouti ranked 26th in world making Djibouti the leading efficient port facility in Sub Sahara Africa.
The two top-ranked container ports in the CPPI 2022 were Yangshan Port (China) in first place, followed by the Port of Salalah (Oman) in second place. These two ports occupy the same positions in the rankings generated by both statistical and administrative approaches. Port of Salalah was ranked second in both approaches in CPPI 2021. Yangshan Port ranked third and fourth in the statistical and administrative approaches, respectively, for CPPI 2021. Three ports in the Middle East that were ranked in the top ten were Salalah, Kahlifa, Hamad, while that from the large Chinese gateways were Yangshan, Ningbo and Guangzhou.
Of the top 10 ranked ports, 9 have either maintained or improved their position since CPPI 2021. The exception is Hamad Port, which moved down 5 and 3 places in the administrative and statistical rankings, respectively. Yokohama fell from 10th and 12th in CPPI 2021 to 15th place in CPPI 2022, and Jeddah fell from 8th place in CPPI 2021 to 29th place in CPPI 2022.
More than 80 percent of global merchandise trade (by volume) is transported via sea routes.
A considerable and increasing proportion of this volume, accounting for about 35 percent of total volumes and over 60 percent of commercial value, is carried in containers.
Djibouti operates the modern Doraleh Container Terminal Management Company (SGTD), while its other multiple port facilities are also handling containerized cargos. The facilities are mainly providing service to Ethiopia which is the most populous nation in the world without a seaport.
The 2022 report indicated that the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath on the sector eased in 2022 overall, “The ease has continued into early 2023.”
“This has resulted in an improvement in both port congestion and a reduction in logistical disruption. The improvement in 2022 has had a positive impact on the performance and ranking of some ports,” the report stated.
In addition, the third edition of the Global Container Port Performance Index report notes overall a marked improvement in operational conditions since the unprecedented disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Around the world, container ports continue to catch up. They could, however, gain more efficiency in certain areas provided they increase their productivity and improve the quality of their services by further dematerialising procedures and modernizing infrastructures.

New research conducted by Addis Ababa University and Johns Hopkins University sheds light on internal and external factors impacting Ethiopia’s polio eradication program.
Recently, in May 2019 and April 2022, Ethiopia was reclassified as an out breaking country given the outbreak in the horn of Africa and the presence of cVDPV3 in the Somali region.
According to the research, environmental barriers, geographic inaccessibility, conflict, mobile population, health system barriers and community barriers emerged as central challenges.
Nevertheless, according to the research, implementations were successful when it came to being flexible and responsive to emerging issues including; adapting service delivery to meet beneficiaries the country was able to develop sound management strategies for planning monitoring and evaluation.
“Polio eradication initiatives are relevant for the implementation of other lifesaving health programs” emphasized Dr. Meseret Zelalem, Director of Maternal Child Health and Nutrition Directorate at Ministry of Health.
The last imported case of wild poliovirus (WPV) in Ethiopia was reported in Somali region in 2014. Ethiopia was removed from the list of polio-endemic countries by the WHO in 2015 and in June 2017, was recognized by the African Regional Certification Commission for maintaining polio-free status for nearly four consecutive years. However, it maintained a “key at-risk” classification from the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) in part because the country was located in the WPV importation belt, where any pockets of low coverage as well as suboptimal surveillance system performance made Ethiopia susceptible to outbreaks due to importation of poliovirus.

Ethiopia started polio eradication efforts in 1996, eight years after the World Health Assembly committed to the global eradication of polio in 1988.
The GPEI is led at the global level by the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Rotary International, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI).
Currently, polio eradication activities are conducted independently while advised by GPEI. The polio eradication initiative strategy in Ethiopia includes four main pillars: strengthening routine immunization; ongoing polio surveillance; conducting polio- specific supplemental immunization activities (SIAs), or campaigns; and “mop up” activities where vaccinators actively seek out and vaccinate children who had been missed during regular immunizations.
From the study it was noted that delivery of routine immunization in Ethiopia was provided via the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) and the Ministry of Health staff at each level of the healthcare system. However, supplementary immunization activities and mop-ups were coordinated and managed by specialized committees at the national, sub-national and local levels.
As indicated, the coordination of the polio eradication program in Ethiopia including resource mobilization, logistics management, social mobilization and vaccination are centrally managed via the strategic interagency coordination committees and their technical subcommittees.
Similarly, as stated on paper, the Civil Society Organizations/Non-Governmental Organizations (CSOs/NGOs) have also played a vital role in implementing eradication activities among hard-to-reach populations, deploying more than 4,000 Community Volunteer Surveillance Focal Persons at the village level to conduct house-to-house case detection and reporting of acute flaccid paralysis.

Rammis Bank, the fourth full-fledged interest free banking (IFB) entrant discloses that it will house dual head quarters at the heart of the Capital and Dire Dawa.
The bank which officially inaugurates its doors today in Addis Ababa at the Bole Flamingo area affirmed that it will have two headquarters, with the other situated at Dire Dawa, 500km east of Addis Ababa.
Rammis, which gained solid ground after successful mobilization of over 2.1 billion birr in subscribed capital and 636 million birr in paid up capital, cited that despite several ups and downs in its formation process it has successfully overcome all hurdles faced to commence operation.
“During the formation process we faced several challenges including COVID 19 and security issues but now we are ready to provide pivotal services for the community,” stated Abduljewad Mohammed, Chairperson of Board of Directors, in a press conference held on Thursday June 1.
According to Abduljewad, Rammis will be one of the key players in the sphere of financial inclusion and fair distribution on resources.
Ali Ahmed, President of Rammis Bank, echoed similar sentiments and underscored that prior to the bank’s operation commencement, the bank was equipped with a core banking system solid enough to allow it to penetrate the market and expand its branches with ease.
He said that the Singaporean iMal Core Banking technology which is suitable for AAOIFI’s, a leading standard-setter for the international Islamic finance industry, was the standard that the bank followed.

“The core banking system that we installed is developed by Azentio and it is unique for Ethiopia since it accommodates a sharia compliant system as per the international standard in the sector,” stated Abduljewad whilst pointing out the merit of the system.
He said that one of the challenges on IFB business in Ethiopia is the inability to fully maximize on operations in the sector to which he underlined that the new system will equip Rammis to seamlessly provide financing products to its customers.
The Board Chairperson reminded that in the IFB scheme significant amount of resources had been mobilized with some gaps still persisting. To this end, he cited that his bank will look forward to bridge this financing gap.
“We will focus on introducing creative products and youth job creation and entrepreneurship will be a priority on our operation,” Abduljewad explained while signaling that agriculture will be a major pillar for the bank.
“We are starting our operation with our owned building that we bought at the heart of the city in front of Oromia region president office,” the President said.
“Our coming to the financial frame will provide additional alternatives to financial inclusion and services on sharia based scheme. We are also targeting to play our part in the digital financial system,” Ali explained.
In a statement, the bank issued that the purchase of its nine story building will ease the expense that the bank may have had to incur on rent for the headquarters.
Regarding its future ambitions, the management stated that it has set a strategy to attain the target it set.
Rammis has over 8,000 shareholders and targets to open 50 branches in the coming few months.