Ekos Steel Mill, located in Dukem, has donated five manual threshing machines to the local community in the form of donations. Ekos Steel Mill PLC in collaboration with Yam workshop has developed multi crop threshers. The thresher will mainly be used in the shelling of teff, wheat, rice, sorghum, barley, millet and different types of crops.
The CEO said the machines had compact features in its structure, that is, good shape and reliable operation, featured by its high threshing rate, great performance and few losses of crop type.
(Photo: Anteneh Aklilu)
As stated on the ceremony, the loss of grain during threshing is estimated to be from 15-25 percent depending on the crop type.
The ceremony was attended by State Minister of Foreign Affairs Tsion Tekle, State Minister of Trade Yohannes Dinkiayahu and other government officials.
Further in the future the company is planning to start producing these threshing machines for the local market.
The United Insurance Company (UNIC) in its gross written premium that includes both Life and general Insurance sector has registered massive improvement despite the effect of instability and the surge of the pandemic to the economy in the concluded budget year.
According to the report of UNIC, as from the concluded budget year of the 30th of June 2020, the gross written premium of both life and non-life stood at 597 million birr, a raise from 533 million birr with respect to the previous year.
Of the total premium, the non life or general insurance sector contributed to over 551 million birr whilst the life sector share was about 46 million birr. “The combined gross written premium grew by about 12 percent in the stated period,” the annual report explained.
(Photo: Anteneh Aklilu)
The report indicated that on all the non life insurance businesses, the premium had climbed excluding the marine cargo/ inland transport business that dropped by 13 percent. This drop was attributed to foreign currency shortage that importers should access for importation.
As the sector tradition, the motor class business retained its top spot in terms of premium portfolio with 62 percent share but it has decreased from 63 percent of the preceding year.
Fire and general accident and engineering followed by 11 and 7 percent respectively.
Net claim incurred for both sector had shown an increment of 6 percent and reached 241 million birr. However, the corporate loss ratio has shrunk for the second consecutive year. This financial year, the loss ratio stood at 55 percent, the previous two years the percentages were 58 and 68.
The loss ratio for the non life sector has dropped to 56 percent in the reviewed year from 60 percent of the previous year. The motor sector loss ratio has continued at the upper with 66 percent share.
The life sector loss ratio was 22 percent that is far below from the industry average of 58 percent.
The corporate underwriting profit that includes life and general sectors has massive grown with more than one fifth of the preceding year.
The report indicated that the underwriting profit for both sectors is 210 million birr in the 2019/20 budget year. This is a 21 percent growth in comparison with the 2018/19 performance that was 173.5 million birr.
The non life sector underwriting profit was boosted by 27 percent and currently stands at 188 million birr. Meanwhile the motor sector took the lion share for claim and loss ratio since it contributed 43 percent for the year surplus.
In the reported year, the gross profit of UNIC has also climbed by 22 percent, while the net profit after tax has registered a 17 percent increment compare with the performance of a year ago.
According to the annual report of UNIC, the profit before tax for 2019/20 budget year stood at 148 million birr from 121 million birr of the preceding year.
At the same time the company after tax profit has surged to 124 million birr, up from 106.6 million birr in 2018/19 budget year.
Due to the company’s decision to climb the paid up capital that reached at 436 million birr as of June 30, 2020 the earning per share has shown decrement in the reported year compared with the preceding year. In accordance, the earning per share stood at 29.9 percent that was 33.8 percent in the 2018/19 year.
(Photo: Anteneh Aklilu)
According to the decision of the extraordinary meeting that was held in November 2018, the paid up capital is expected to reach half a billion birr by November 2022.
The company asset has also risen to 1.6 billion birr up from 1.5 billion birr.
The insurer has 51 branches including 12 contact offices. It has four buildings including the new head quarter inaugurated in the past budget year that contributed to amass huge amount of revenue from rent. The company said that besides generating huge amount form rent income it also saved significant amounts from rent expense.
A once projected thriving textile company that became bankrupt is set to make a comeback. The company, Ayka Addis Textile and Investment Group was established in May 2012 with a total capital of 1 billion and a paid up capital of 679 million birr by Turkish investment groups. The factory has been out of business for more than a year and has been paying its 4500 staff for free work due to lack of operation.
According to Melaku Alebel, Minister of Trade and Industry, the Development Bank of Ethiopia is taking over the factory in accordance with the banking system.
Due to the inability of the company to repay the 3.2 billion birr loan that was provided by the Development Bank of Ethiopia, the development bank had made attempts to auction it. The loan was provided at the onset of 2008 with the expected loan repayment time provided till 2013, which of course was unsuccessful. Ayka Addis Textile & Investment Group is the first company to be auctioned, and it failed to attract bidders who can offer 1.8 billion birr. The company failed to attract bidders primarily because of the high price set by the development bank as well as its competitiveness with regards to its marketing.
As from the last fiscal year, the state owned bank had ratified the annual budget to manage some companies that failed to attract buyers, including the Turkish company, Ayka Addis group since there are thousands of employees under the company.
However as Melaku said, the reason for this is the failure of the concerned parties to resolve their problems and the failure of the entire Development Bank of Ethiopia to take responsibility for the factory.
“In the future, short, medium and long term plans will be prepared and the workers will be able to return to work and the factory will be operational in a short period of time,” he stated.
Ayka Addis Textile Factory is located on a 20.1 hectares piece of land with 4,500 workers and it is said to have the capacity to employ more than 10,000 workers.
On Friday, Officials from the Ministry of Trade and Industry, including Melaku Alebel, officials from the Development Bank of Ethiopia and the Confederation of Trade Unions visited the factory to discuss issues that will enable it to start operations soon.
Ayka Addis was once considered to be an anchor investment that Ethiopia succeeded to attract. However, it did not take long for the company to face the dreadful realities of shortages in raw materials mostly cotton, lack of skilled labor and power outages. The political crisis also contributed to the malfunctioning of Ayka Addis. At first, Ayka Addis seemed to be doing well but failed to sustain the momentum and since 2014, it was operating on a loss until it declared bankruptcy in 2017. The company is believed to have created 7,000 jobs at the time.
The Israeli government has offered a helping hand to the Ethiopian government with the provision of 27 drowns and equipment as well as offering training to combat the desert locusts.
Following the request by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gabi Ashkenazi instructed to deploy an ad-hoc task force of locust fighters and experts to Ethiopia in order to join forces with their Ethiopian counterparts and control the spread of the swarms in the country.
During the past few months, Ethiopia faced an overwhelming invasion of desert locust swarms that damaged crops and pasture fields in many regions.
Embassy of Israel in Addis Ababa is now leading the operation, in coordination with the Ethiopian concerned bodies.
(Photo: Anteneh Aklilu)
Israel’s top locust expert, Yoav Mortro heads the task force, which includes three additional members who specialize in different fields of expertise.
The task force plans to operate in Ethiopia for two weeks, during which it will demonstrate and train more than 200 Ethiopian locust fighters, governmental agencies, and international organizations representatives.
The task force brings more than 2 tons of equipment and advanced appliances that will be handed over to the Ethiopian authorities with the conclusion of the operation.
According to the embassy, Israel is thrilled to share is experience and know-how with Ethiopia.
This operation symbolizes the strong and long-lasting relations between Israel and Ethiopia, which are demonstrated during normal and challenging times.
Members of the task force met Ethiopian officials from the Ministry of Agriculture on Wednesday 11th November 2020.
Desert locust is one of the most destructive pests, as it is highly mobile and feed on large quantities of any kind of green vegetation, including crops, pasture, and fodder.
In most cases, the common response to locust swarms invasion is aerial spraying of crops using pesticides.
Israeli researchers developed a unique and innovative method, based on the accumulated experience with these phenomena in Israel.
This cutting-edge method is based on daytime surveillance by drones and data analysis of the swarm’s movement, followed by night spraying while the pests are static.
(Photo: Anteneh Aklilu)
According to the World Food Organization, In Ethiopia, a few immature swarms persist in the Afar region while more immature swarms are present in the Somali region between Jijiga and Degeh Bur, some of which are maturing. In the Ogaden, second and third instar hopper bands are present between Warder and the Somalia border, and at least one swarm has laid eggs near Kebri Dehar.
“Important and widespread breeding continues in eastern Ethiopia and central Somalia where new swarms are expected to start forming in early December and move south to Kenya and southern Somalia by mid-December. Control operations are underway,” stated FAO signaling another round of swarm.
