By Ruth Brook
Adwa will see the introduction of a new hotel franchise setting foot in Africa with Ethiopia as its first destination. Chinese company, Sunmei International, is opening a five star hotel – Rizti Hotel – in Adwa, Tigray region.
The expansion into the African market is not a new venture for the company, Sunmei launched into the continent in 2018 with hopes of opening two major hotel brands – IVY and Rizti – in Africa, with Ethiopia as the first location for both; these brands were created specifically for the African market.
Sunmei International is a joint venture subsidiary of Chinese company, Sunmei Group, with over 10 years in the hospitality business and 5000 hotels in Europe and Asia, the majority of which are in China. This is Sunmei Group’s first step in reaching their goal of building Africa’s largest hotel chain.
“Adwa is the first of many locations in Ethiopia that Sunmei hopes to franchise in. The company is currently looking into opening a Rizti franchise in Mekelle, Hawassa and Bahir Dar,” said Eden Tadesse, Sunmei Brand and Marketing Manager.
Plans for the hotel are underway, with Sunmei planning to have Rizti sit on 7,000 square meters in Adwa with 203 rooms.
“Our company handles everything related to hotels, design, construction, renovation, decoration, and consultancy and marketing materials, all from China,” said Jack Sun, Sunmei Business Development Manager.
A subsidiary of the Sunmei Hotel Group, Rizti Hotel is a 5-6 star hotel; it affiliates art and culture into the travelling experience and aims to provide a sanctuary for global travelers.
The Rizti hotel in Adwa is set to open in a short period of time, Eden announced.
The first IVY hotel is also currently under construction, with plans of opening in the next 6 months in Area 22, Addis Ababa. IVY Hotels hold a 3-4 star rating and are designed to be an economic chain hotel with a target market of “business economy”.
The company closely monitors their hotels to make sure they uphold the set standard.
“If they meet our standard we just do light renovation and decoration, there will be franchise fees they have to pay,” Eden explained.
The franchise company is ranked 16th in the world and 5th in Asia. Sunmei Group is looking to expand both IVY and Rizti hotels in Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya in the near future.
Chinese hotel franchising giant to open a five star hotel in Ethiopia
Going full electric
Tesla Model S vehicles up for sale by local importer
Ethiopian importers and assemblers are moving forward in the vehicle industry. Kahinos Car Importer, locally owned import and Trade Company starts to import the Tesla Model S vehicles that are fully electric, to the local market for the first time.
Tesla Model S is known as a phenomenal vehicle and one of the best vehicles in the luxury hybrid and electric models. It is an all-electric five-door lift back sedan with Dual Motor All-Wheel Drive produced by Tesla Inc., and introduced on June 22, 2012.
The model is built with best in class storage, seating for up to five adults and an expansive 17-inch touch screen. Advanced noise engineering creates sound dynamics comparable to a recording studio, while the standard Glass Roof provides a spacious interior experience for every passenger.
Unlike gasoline cars, Tesla cars require no traditional oil changes, fuel filters, spark plug replacements or emission checks. Tesla cars have a powerful battery, which is charged by electricity.
“The battery had enough power to travel 385 miles /600 km/ once the car is charged fully” said Yahunualem Tadesse owner and General Manager of Kahinos. “This model is imported from Dubai and we have plans to import other models of Tesla to provide for the local market,” said Yahunualem adding that “although foreign currency may be our biggest challenge.” 
The Tesla Model S vehicles built after October 2016 have the option of an advanced driver assistance system that allows the car to operate without assistance from the driver, but the driver must supervise continuously and take control if there is an issue. This feature is called Autopilot.
The Tesla Model S was the top-selling plug-in electric car worldwide in 2015 and 2016, and by the end of 2018 continued to rank as the second most-sold electric car in history after the Nissan Leaf. The December 2017 Consumer Reports owner satisfaction survey had the Tesla Model S at the top. In 2019, the US magazine Motor Trend named the 2013 Tesla Model S the ultimate car of the year over the magazine’s 70-year history.
A couple of weeks ago marathon motors has also announced to start assembling new models of electric cars in the coming three months.
According to Melkamu Assefa Managing Director of Marathon Motors the newly upcoming car is going to be able to be charged at a house hold level with 220 volt and the car will have the capacity to travel more than 300 km by charging six hours.
In Ethiopia, a country with the lowest numbers of cars in the world at 1.1 million, of which half are located in the capital, demand for cars is high. Out of the total number of cars, 219,699 vehicles are small automobiles.
Certainly it is not common to see electric cars at road of Addis Ababa not even newly assembled cars. Recently the government is moving to revise the Excise tax on luxury and harmful products protect the environment which includes used cars. The Revised excise tax rate draft imposes up to 500% excise tax on vehicles based on their service year
Excise tax on new imported automobiles and semi-electric cars is reduced from 35 to 30 and 35 to 20 percent, respectively, and on full electric cars decreased to 10 percent which is 20 % currently.
Tesla cars, therefore, are relatively expensive to buy. The flagship Model S sedan has a base price of $71,000 not including a $10,000 extended battery or other upgrades and options. However both Melkamu and Yahunualem shares the idea that even if the electric cars price is higher than the cars that use gasoline, once they are purchased there is no need for maintenance and fuel.
“The cars don’t need oil and gas and can travel without any cost for ten years,” said both Yahunualem and Melkamu “It only needs periodic inspection.”
Association aims to boost innovation
Ethiopia has a new and first innovators association that aims to increase the development of technological learning and innovation and strengthened role of local inventions. On December 22, 2019, over 200 innovators have formed the new association called Ethiopian Innovators Association (EIA).
According to Mekbeb Tadesse process engineer, inventor of different kinds of products and software and president of the newly established association, the idea to form the association starts on the 2019 African Innovation Week which was held in Addis Ababa from October 28th – November 2nd.
“Even if lots of inventions were made in different levels of the society there is low access to change them in to innovation and use the fundamental outcomes of innovation” said Mekbeb adding “the main aim of the association is to gather those inventors and change their inventions to impact full innovation in different parts of the society.”
Mekbeb further said “we form the association in order to scale up the use of creative and innovative solutions to solve development issues in different sectors and creative and innovative solutions for the dynamic development of all.”
The new association has listed 12 major goals to achieve including developing the Made in Ethiopia concept by developing locally produced products and building innovation parks and centers in the coming three years.
The association starts to develop its own platform to start registering innovators and their inventions that are found all over the country in the coming six months.
African Innovation Week 2019 was organized by IBA Ethiopia Center for Innovation in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Innovation & Technology of Ethiopia, the African Union, Oslo International Hub, Ethiopian Norwegian Chamber of Commerce, UNDP Ethiopia and other stakeholders. Over 3,000 participants participated in the week-long forum. Beside the trainings and scions there was innovation challenging competition sponsored by UNDP and awarded top five innovators from Rwanda, Ethiopia and Togo where each one received USD $5,000. The 50 finalist innovators were awarded USD $1,000 each to encourage them to continue working on their ideas. Mekebeb was one of the top five awarded innovators with his different invention.
Through the home-grown economic reform and 10-year strategy, Ethiopia aims to become a middle-income economy in 2025. Innovation and technology set as the main drivers for attaining this goal; however the countries rapid economic growth is much slower in the growth of technological learning and innovation capacity as a major obstacle to sustaining this impressive performance and achieving more sustainable development.
“The association helps to improve local technological upgrading and innovation of industries identified as important for Ethiopia’s development as one of its aims” said Mekbeb.
The current Ethiopian Science and Technology Innovation policy gives priority to technology transfer, mainly referring to acquisition of technologies from abroad. Implicit in this approach is the assumption that acquired technologies will be automatically assimilated in the local economy through learning, linkages and demonstration effects.
Embassy of India celebrates new location and 70th Republic Day
By Ruth Brook
The Embassy of India to Ethiopia had many reasons to celebrate this past Friday as it marked their homecoming to their previous location and kicked off the festivities for India’s 70th Republic Day.
“These celebrations are truly special for us,” said Ambassador of India Anurag Srivastava.
The homecoming is almost four years in the making, the Ambassador explained. The embassy relocated in November 2016 in order to have the previous diplomatic space renovated to reflect the longstanding relations between Ethiopia and India, 2020 marks their return.
The occasion was celebrated with a reception at the newly refurbished premises, with high level dignitaries, Ambassadors, members of diplomatic corps as well as representatives from UNECA and AU in attendance. 
This year also marks 70 years of strong diplomatic relations between Ethiopia and India. The Ambassador spoke on the mutually beneficial relationship between the countries, highlighting achievements in health, education and technology sectors.
In May 2019, the India-Ethiopia Innovation & Technology Commercialization Programme was launched with the purpose of sharing technological innovations and to “migrate least 50 successful innovations in areas like healthcare, agriculture, water & sanitation and environment & forestry.” This project aims to create 50 small to medium enterprises in the next five years, the Ambassador said.
He also spoke on the advances India has made as a country, in the last five years rural sanitation coverage in India has reached a whopping 99%. He further stated that the cheapest data service in the world is found in India, redefining governance and making for a “Digital India”.
The people of India recently participated in the 17th general election which was the largest democratic exercise in human history with more than 610 million voters taking part. It was also monumental in that the highest number of women representatives were elected in these elections, the Ambassador explained.
“In this process, a new India is emerging – an India which is not avoiding challenges but taking them head on; an India which insists on complete solutions to problems, not just on some incremental changes.”
The festivities will continue with a flag hoisting ceremony on Sunday, 26th January 2020 and into next week with a food festival “Taste of India” at Hyatt Regency from the 25th of January until the 5th of February.
