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Marathon Motor launches first electric vehicle charging station

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Marathon Motor launches first electric vehicle charging station

Marathon Motor Engineering Plc, a pioneer in assembling electric cars in Ethiopia has launched the first electric car charging station and its second model Hyundai Kona SUV electric vehicle.
The launch was held in a ceremony on December 28, 2021 in the presence of different government officials and guests at the premises of Marathon Motor Engineering.
“The electric cars assembled locally could have vital benefit to the country in saving cost and hard currency fee of fuel,” said Melkamu Assefa, managing director of Marathon Motors while speaking on the company’s plan to introduce and expand electric car manufacturing with affordable price to the community by 2025. The company plans to shift 80 percent of its production into electric cars. During the ceremony, Marathon Motors rolled out 20 electric cars with an estimated price tag of up to 3.3 million Ethiopian birr.
The company has assembled more than 14 vehicle models and has already begun to launch different models of Hyundai electric cars in two rounds.
“The National Bank of Ethiopia will try to support those investments that contribute to curbing costs for fuel and cut foreign currency expenses,” said Yinager Dessie (PhD), Governor of the National Bank of Ethiopia while speaking at the event. The governor further elaborated that Ethiopia spends about 2.5 billion dollars annually for fuel consumption.
Owned by Ethiopia’s Olympic gold medalist and business tycoon, Athlete Haile Gebreselassie, Marathon Motor Engineering PLC (MME) was founded in 2008 and was officially inaugurate in February 2009 as an importer and distributor of Hyundai passenger, commercial vehicles and genuine parts in Ethiopia. Marathon is the first company to introduce the first fully locally assembled electric car HYUNDIA Ionic in July 2020.
Currently there are about 40 vehicle assembly plants in Ethiopia. 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.
It is certainly not common to see electric cars on Addis roads let alone newly assembled cars.
“Commencement of the new electric cars’ assembly line is aligned with the government’s priority to build a climate-friendly economic growth as the vehicles have zero emission of carbon dioxide,” said the CEO of Marathon Motor.

Addis Ababa hotel owners plea for loan payment extension

Metasebia Teshome
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Addis Ababa hotel owners plea for loan payment extension

Addis Ababa Hotel Owner’s Trade Sectorial Association requests the national bank for a policy decision for commercial banks to extend the loan repayment period.
Ever since the first case of COVID-19 was reported in March 2020, hotels have been facing a drastic fall in room occupancy rates, while the income of businesses involved in the industry dried up due to decline in the number of tourists. Thus the hospitality industry players requested the government for a provocation package that can help them rescue their businesses and retain their staff at these trying times since travel restrictions, flight disruptions, social distancing and lockdown directives have brought down the local hospitality industry to its knees.
Therefore the government decided to support hotel owners and tour operators who sought government assistance to withstand the severe impacts of COVID-19 which brought the hospitality industry to a standstill.
As a result, the government decided to provide loans for the hotel and tourism sector. Accordingly, the government has been able to lend 3.3 billion birr for six months from June 2020, despite the hotels request of 6.6 billion birr for one year.
“Although the government’s move saved the sector at the time, the threat to the hotel sector remains unresolved unless the loan term is extended,” said Aster Solomon, President of the association. Hotels are still in danger if their repayment period is not extended as they already have loans for construction and other purposes other than the Pandemic Rehabilitation Loans.
“Even if lenders understand the problem of hotels and want to extend the repayment period, they will not be able to do so without a directive from the National Bank of Ethiopia,” Aster explained.
As Aster said, after doing the necessary assessments, the association has written and submitted a letter to the National Bank of Ethiopia that shows hotels are facing a national crisis, “To this end we are yet to receive a response,” the president of the association said.
“We have requested the government to avail loans, and postpone the loan repayment in order to keep the hotels afloat,” stated Aster.
“Commercial banks have understood the difficult situation that the hotel and tourism sector has found itself in. Likewise, the Addis Ababa City Tourism Bureau is also working to find a way to support the association,” Aster expounded on the matter.
As the hotel industry, both here and globally continue to recover from the hard hitting pandemic, most if not all hotel industries are operating in nil profits with their revenues dwindling drastically. The hotels are not making profits at this difficult time and are thus not able to repay their loans which could increase the non-performing loan of banks which could result to the closure of hotels.
So it would be commendable if the banks can relieve them of loan repayment, reduce interest, and the government to provide assistance to the hospitality industry and failure to do so can prove catastrophic for the industry.

ZamZam introduces sharia compliant core banking solution

Groum Abate
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ZamZam introduces sharia compliant core banking solution

ZamZam Bank discloses that it has become the first financial firm to introduce sharia compliant core banking solution in the country.
The financial firm which became the first full-fledged interest free bank in Ethiopia after securing its operational license late September last year, has held its first annual general assembly and extraordinary meeting last week.
Nasir Dino, Chairperson of the Board of Directors, said that after obtaining the license from National Bank of Ethiopia on September 28, 2020, the bank has been strengthening human resource, organizing the IT project office, developing policies, procedure and strategy in addition to endorsing a president and VPs.
According to the chairperson, major milestones were done to organize the head quarter and branches starting from area selection to implementing pertinent tasks simultaneously in order to speed up the commencement of operations.
He implied that the Sharia Advisory Council members for the bank were carefully selected based on their merit, knowledge and contribution towards the development and expansion of interest free banking.
Nasir reminded that the paid up capital of the bank has reached 1.233 billion birr.
Currently the bank that secured operational license at the end of the first quarter of the 2020/21 financial year has managed to open 20 branches in different parts of the country and managed to gain more than 35,000 customers in few months time.
“Hence the bank is working towards growing it’s paid up capital to 5 billion birr and collecting as much foreign currency as it can,” Nasir added.
On the statement the bank sent to Capital in order to realize the principal focus of the bank which is operational excellence, ZamZam implemented the first sharia compliant core banking solution in the country to ease branch operation and financing activities.
It announced that in the first few month of its operation the bank has managed to establish good relationship and connections with well-known international banks and transfer agents. It has also started swift service that is essential for international trade.

Oromia Bank sees boom in IFB services

Staff Reporter
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Oromia Bank sees boom in IFB services

Deposit mobilization hits 34 billion birr

Oromia Bank registers a growth in deposit mobilization and interest free banking (IFB) activities in the past financial year.
The annual report of the bank indicated that in the year the deposit mobilization expanded by almost a quarter compared with the performance attained a year earlier.
The deposit mobilization of the bank surged to 34 billion birr a climb of 24 percent from the preceding year.
According to the annual report of the bank, the saving deposit has taken 62 percent of the total collection and it grew by almost 28 percent to stand at 21.3 billion birr. It was followed by demand deposit which expanded by 30 percent.
The total outstanding loan and advances that includes the interest free banking financing at the end of June 2021 was 25.8 billion birr, “exhibited a growth of 27 percent over the position attained at the end of the preceding year,” the report read.
On his message, Teferi Mekonnen, President of Oromia Bank, stated that in the 12 years of operational history, the bank concluded the year with the lowest ever non performing loan (NPL) ratio that stood at 2.43 percent.
In the reporting year, the total asset of the bank has spiked by 23 percent and reached almost 42 billion birr. In the 2019/20 financial year Oromia Bank’s total was 33.8 billion birr.
At the end of the year the bank has secured 4.5 billion birr income that increased by 18 percent from the revenue earned a year ago.
The bank profit before tax has increased by six percent to reach 1.13 billion birr that was 1.07 billion birr on June 30, 2020.
The profit after tax has stood at 872 million birr that was 860.8 million birr a year ago.
The paid up capital of the bank has reached 3.47 billion birr as of June 30 last year from the preceding year of three billion birr.
The IFB business, which Oromia Bank introduced as pioneer, is continuing on its promising growth in terms of financing and saving. The profit from IFB is stated as huge success even when compared with some other conventional financial firms’ profit.
The report indicated that in the year the IFB contributed a profit of 301 million birr which is a spike of 33.4 percent.
“IFB customers has significantly increased year on year reaching 611 thousand showing an increment of 62 percent from its last year customer base of 376 thousand,” the report mentioned the successes registered in IFB, an infant financial business for the country.
It added that the number of IFB borrowers also reached 810 at the end of the reporting year. “This indicates that the customers have developed big trust in our services as we are dedicated in offering the products and services,” the report opined.
For the year, the IFB deposit mobilization has stood almost at 4.9 billion birr with the growth of 23.6 percent compared with 3.9 billion birr of a year ago.
In the year, the total amount of financing the bank provided through IFB instruments has reached 3.5 billion birr that rose by 22 percent.
“As a result, the IFB financing to deposit ratio of the bank stood at 73 percent in the reported period,” the annual report said.
In terms of income, the IFB has expanded by 72 percent from 242 million birr in June 2020 to 416 million in June 2021. The income share from the total revenue of the bank constituted six percent.

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