SERVIZIO NEWS

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1 Ambasciata d Italia ad AddisAbeba SERVIZIO NEWS ETHIOPIA Over 2.3 bln birr construction, expansion of airport projects well underway... 2 Installation of main machinery finalized at Beles-I sugar factory... 3 Work on Ethio-Djibouti fuel pipeline begins next June... 4 Tripartite committee agree on technical proposal prepared by French firms... 5 GERD beneficial to supply electricity to Ethiopia s neighbors: Ambassadors... 6 Ethiopia to Revise Regulations to Boost Foreign Direct Investment... 7 SOUTH SUDAN South Sudanese governor warns opposition MPs against war rhetoric... 8 DJIBOUTI Télécommunications : Un nouveau câble sous-marin de fibre optique atterrit à Djibouti ALTRO Appuntamenti Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Addis Abeba Seguiteci su: - Facebook: Ethiopia/ ?fref=ts -Twitter: - InfoMercati Esteri

2 Over 2.3 bln birr construction, expansion of airport projects well underway Airport projects being built with an outlay of over 2.3 billion birr are well underway, according to Ethiopian Airports Enterprise (EAE). ( FBC) EAE Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Ambachew Abate said the projects in five regional states and the capital city are progressing well. Activities are intensified to finalize the construction of the airfields according to their schedules, Ambachew stated, indicating the locations of the projects as Jinka, Hawassa, Robe, Shire, and Semera. The expansion of the terminal of Addis Ababa Bole International Airport will be completed after three years, he elaborated According to the deputy CEO, the expanded and upgraded Kebridahar Airport in Somali Regional State will be transferred to the enterprise soon. Infrastructures are also being finalized for the expanded Bahir Dar and Dembi Dolo airports, it was pointed out. Selection of site for airstrip in Nekemte is finalized. Preparations are also well underway for the selection of fields that can handle light aircrafts for five airports. The enterprise is currently administering four international and 19 domestic airports. EAE has reportedly secured over 632 million birr during the past six months of the fiscal year. 2

3 Installation of main machinery finalized at Beles-I sugar factory The construction of Bles-I and II sugar factories has entered in a decisive phase. ( FBC) Metals and Engineering Corporation (METEC), a firm which was awarded the contract, said it is working to finalize the construction of the factories within a short period of time. Currently, installation of main machinery has been completed at Beles-I sugar factory, Col. Gebremichael Hago, the project s manager said. Preparation is underway to begin installation of machinery at Beles-II as well by completing the construction works soon, he said. In a related development, the Ethiopian Power Engineering Industry, one of the industries under the auspices of the corporation, is working to generate 45MW power from Beles-I project. The construction of the project will be finalized within a few months, Major Asefa Yohannes, general manager of the project said. The growing participation of indigenous companies in large local projects enabled the country to save the foreign exchange it spends to hire foreign companies, he said. At present, the construction of 10 sugar factories is underway across the country. Upon going fully operational, they are expected to raise the country s sugar production capacity by eightfold, Ethiopia envisaged increasing its annual sugar production to 2.3 million tons at the end of the second Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP-II) period from 300,000 tons now. This will allow the country to export more than 1.2 million tons surplus sugar. 3

4 Work on Ethio-Djibouti fuel pipeline begins next June The construction of a new 1.55-billion US dollars, 550-kilometer multiproduct fuel pipeline from Ethiopia to Djibouti will begin next June. ( FBC) US Assistant Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, made the announcement while concluding his two-day visit to Djibouti, where he held talks with Ismail Omar Guelleh, President of the Republic of Djibouti. The two-year fuel pipeline project will be funded by Black Rhino, an American company that invests in African infrastructure development. Both countries approved the project, also known as Horn of Africa pipeline (HOAP), in October. The pipeline will to come online in The 20-in.-dia pipeline will transport diesel, gasoline and jet fuel from Djibouti Port to storage facilities at Awash in central Ethiopia, a country with an annual fuel demand growth rate of 15%. This is the second oilpipeline project Ethiopia has signed with its neighbors. It involves construction of a 32-berth port in Kenya, a 880-km highway, a 120,000 barrel-per-day refinery in Lamu, three lots of resort cities and three lots of airports. So far, only the construction of the 32 berths has started. A feasibility study by German-Austrian firm ILF Consulting Engineers estimates the crude-oil pipeline's cost at 4 billion US dollars. It will connect oil fields in northeastern Kenya with those in Uganda and in South Sudan and end up at the crude-oil processing plant in Lamu. Earlier, an ambitious 29-billion US dollars transport and infrastructure agreement with Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan called for the development of a km crude-oil pipeline under the joint Lamu Port Southern Sudan- Ethiopia Transport (Lapsset) scheme. Analysts say the Ethiopia-Djibouti fuelproduct pipeline is not a threat to the Lapsset one unless the HOAP project results in the transportation of refined products that the proposed refinery in Lamu cannot match in price. 4

5 Tripartite committee agree on technical proposal prepared by French firms The tripartite national committee on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Tuesday has agreed on a joint stance toward the technical proposal submitted by the French consultancy firms that were assigned to study the impact the dam on Sudan and Egypt. ( FBC) On September 22, 2014, the panel of experts in the three countries proposed the conduction of two additional studies on the dam project, the first one on the effect of the dam on the water quota of Sudan and Egypt and the second one to examine the dam s ecological, economic and social impacts of the dam on Sudan and Egypt. The French Artelia and BRL groups have been selected to undertake the dam impact studies. The U.K.-based law firm Corbett & Co was selected to manage the legal affairs of the tripartite committee. The tripartite committee, which concluded a two-day meeting in Khartoum Tuesday, has agreed to submit a joint memo pertaining to the three countries remarks on the technical proposal prepared by the French firms. Sudanese sources said the envelope of the financial offer submitted by the two French firms was opened by the heads of the committees from the three countries including Saif al-din Hamad of Sudan, Ahmed Baha al-din of Egypt and Gedion Asfaw of Ethiopia. The same sources pointed that the remarks would be referred to the French firms while the legal advisor, Corbett would embark on developing the draft contract. It added the tripartite committee would meet again on Wednesday in the presence of ministers of irrigation of Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia to discuss the contract proposal prior to signing it. The multi-billion dollar dam is being constructed on the Blue Nile, about 20 kilometres from the Sudanese border, and has a capacity of 74 billion cubic meters, and is expected to generate electrical power of up to 6,000 megawatts. Egypt is concerned that the dam could reduce its water share, while the Ethiopian side maintains that the dam is primarily built to produce electricity and will not harm Sudan and Egypt. 5

6 GERD beneficial to supply electricity to Ethiopia s neighbors: Ambassadors Ethiopia has said repeatedly that it will use the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) to generate electricity, which will be exported to the neighboring countries after meeting local demand. ( FBC) Ambassadors of three countries; namely ambassadors of the U.S, Japan and South Korea verified this fact after visiting the dam, Africa's biggest, being built on the Nile River, in Benishangul Gumuz Regional State. When asked about their impression about the project by FBC reporter, they said we are impressed with the project and the key purpose of the dam is to generate electricity. Ambassador of the U.S to Ethiopia, Patricia Haslach, said she was impressed with the scale, size and engineering works going on at the project. I think the importance of the dam is to generate 6,000 MW power and is very similar to the Grand Coulee Dam in the United State of America, she said. Regarding its benefit, the ambassador said the dam is very important to supply electricity to Ethiopians and Ethiopia s neighbors. Everybody agrees that having electricity is very important. We are supportive of Ethiopia s plan to sell electricity to its neighbors. Ambassador of South Korea to Ethiopia, Moonhwan Kim said the key concept and purpose of the project is to generate electricity. He further said the project is hugely beneficial to the entire Ethiopians and to the eastern Africa people. According to him, the dam will help Ethiopia to attract more investment from across the world, including fromsouth Korea in the years to come. Japanese Ambassador to Ethiopia, Kazuhiro Suzuki, described the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam as a symbolic project. The project is much more than I expected. It is really a mega project. Ethiopians are doing a great job. I hope they will continue to complete this project successfully. The successful completion of the project will give Japanese investors confidence to invest in Ethiopia, he said. 6

7 Ethiopia to Revise Regulations to Boost Foreign Direct Investment The Ethiopian Investment Commission (EIC) is to revise regulations that slow down the flow of foreign direct investment (FDI) to the country and implement them soon, Walta Information Center reported. ( Merkato) This was disclosed at the Ethiopia Ease of Doing Business Reform Validation Workshop held in Addis Ababa in cooperation with the World Bank. Mr. Fitsum Arega, EIC commissioner, announced that the government was working with commitment to attract international investors by creating favorable trade environment. In order to achieve that, legal frameworks that waste the time and energy of investors were identified and revised. The revised proclamation is currently pending the decision of the concerned body. He further added that the new laws would help Ethiopia become a very conductive and favored country for doing business. It has been pointed out that the status of Ethiopia with respect to doing business is low according to the benchmark set by the World Bank. The commission ensured that it would improve the status within the coming five years. Dr. Arkebe Oqubya, Special Advisor to the Prime Minister, addressed on his part that Ethiopia is working to become the leading manufacturing hub in Africa by Thus, Ethiopia is working to create favorable atmosphere and systems that enable to do business in the country. 7

8 South Sudanese governor warns opposition MPs against war rhetoric A newly appointed South Sudanese governor to one of the controversial 28 states which President Salva Kiir unilaterally decreed has counter warned members of parliament (MPs) in Juba against war rhetoric, saying the war has not ended anyway in his home state. ( SudanTribute) Eastern Nile state governor, General Chol Thon Balok, whose state has been curved from the former Upper Nile state by the decree and given all the oil producing areas including the state capital, Malakal, said the MPs should desist from the threats of war in order to avoid further bloodshed. Opposition MPs representing Shilluk ethnic group, whose lands have been cut off and annexed to the new Eastern Nile state of the Padang Dinka ethnic group where the 8 president hails from, told news conference on Tuesday in Juba that the annexation of their ancestral lands to Dinka s ethnic group including the Shilluk town of Malakal is a recipe for war unless revoked. The leader of minority in parliament, Onyoti Adigo Nyikwac, said President Kiir s creation of the 28 states which divided the former Upper Nile state into three new ethnic states of Eastern Nile (Dinka), Western Nile (Shilluk) and Latjor (Nuer) annexing lands to the Dinka community is an attempt to create wars between the neighboring communities. However, governor Balok, a Dinka, said the lawmaker should know that the current war between the government of President Kiir and former Vice President, Riek Machar, is not over yet in greater Upper Nile region that a new war could be hatched. The war is going on in the whole Upper Nile now. There is no ceasefire there, even in Western Nile state," Governor Balok told Sudan Tribune on Wednesday, referring to the new state inhabited by members of Shilluk tribe. "I am not surprised and I cannot be threatened or deterred by the language of war that they use," he said. He warned that the lawmakers will be held responsible for anything that will take place in the region, warning he was ready to face them should they not embrace the implementation of the peace agreement. Governor Balok, a former deputy chief of general staff in the South Sudanese army (SPLA) until his appointment in 2015, said he is happy with the division of the former Upper Nile state which also gave him the former regional capital, Malakal, as his new headquarters, pushing away to the ethnicities including the Shilluk and the Nuer from the area.

9 He said since the Shilluk and the Nuer do not belong to Malakal anymore and have their own states and new capitals, there was need to dismiss their civil servants from Malakal capital and divide the former state assets among the three new states. "The three governors sat down with the asset registration committee and agreed to divide assets and human capital," Balok said.. There are fears that the creation of the new states may become a factor which will ruin the implementation of the peace agreement signed by all parties on the basis of the existing 10 states in the country. An inclusive boundary commission is supposed to be established in order to determine creation of new states and their boundaries, or else revert to the 10 states should there be a disagreement on the matter.. 9

10 Télécommunications : Un nouveau câble sous-marin de fibre optique atterrit à Djibouti La réputation de Djibouti comme «nœud d interconnexions» des télécommunications se confirme de plus en plus. Avec l atterrissement d un nouveau câble sousmarin de fibre optique qui est survenu hier à la plage de la Siesta. ( LaNation) Le ministre de la Communication, chargé des Postes et Télécommunications, Ali Hassan Bahdon, a assisté hier après-midi aux différentes étapes de l atterrissement d un câble sous- marin de fibre optique à la plage de la Siesta. L info route sousmarine est la plus longue du monde. Elle s étend de Hong Kong en Chine à Marseille en France en passant par Djibouti qui est le seul pays d Afrique où elle atterrit. Le fait découle d un long processus. Il vient traduire la confiance que les partenaires au développement accordent au secteur djiboutien des télécommunications comme l a si bien relevé le ministre de tutelle. M. Ali Hassan Bahdon a en outre mis en exergue la réputation de Djibouti comme «nœud d interconnexions» qui se confirme de plus en plus. Avec l arrivée du présent câble sousmarin de fibre optique et celle du SEAMW5 qui est prévue le 15 février prochain. La mise en service de ces deux nouvelles inforoutes sous-marines décupleront les capacités opérationnelles de Djibouti Télécom. Nous reviendrons plus en détails sur ce sujet d actualité dans nos prochaines éditions. 10

11 Appuntamenti Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Addis Abeba 11