One of the two most profitable financial firms, Dashen Bank, launches the pro government initiative to expand youth entrepreneurship in a program that will include six cities at the initial stage with a budget of 100 million birr.
The project called ‘Ethiopian Talent Power Series’ is part of the bank’s five-year strategy plan that was approved a year ago, according to Asfaw Alemu, president of Dashen.
He said that the project is also one of the pillars of the government’s strategy to achieve in the coming years. Job creation has been the one of the government’s priorities in the past while actual achievement was poor. Abiy Ahmed’s new initiative, Home Grown Economic Reform Agenda, and the formation of commission for the job creation has been the imputes behind this.
Mamo Mihretu, the Prime Minister’s Policy Advisor, who attended the launching ceremony held on Thursday December 26, said that the reform agenda is mainly targets to shift the public driven economic direction to private sector. Since the reform agenda, which is a three year strategy started on the current budget year, they introduced several pro private sector policy reforms implemented and others will continue.
“The job creation will be primarily led by the private engine. The current initiative of Dashen is a good start that others should follow,” Mamo said.
Asfaw said that the program would include higher education institutions, researchers and public institutions who are engaged in the job creation initiative.
The project will have capacity building and training on entrepreneurship that is also supported by universities and other experts.
“We have several initiatives to promote our company in that framework we shall manage such new programs,” the president said.
“We have resources. The issue is how we play on the project. Providing finance is not a solution they would not back by capacity building,” he added.
Yihnalem Aknaw, Chief Transformation and Customer Experience Officer, said that the project will continue for the future.
“The ‘Ethiopian Talent Power Series’ has six pillars including entrepreneurial training, capacity building on small, medium enterprises higher education finance support, access to finance, business club formation and market linkage and finance support,” Yihnalem said.
“After the accomplishment of the training and capacity building the under the business club initiative the bank will provide finance for entreprenenuers to start business and other financers shall also provide form them,” he added.
Under initial stage of the project six centers at Dire Dawa, Addis Ababa, Meqele, Hawassa, Adama and Bahir Dar will be formed and they will include the surroundings, according to the top management of the bank.
Under a single centre 1,000 youth will be included on the training and they would form company at their graduation.
Chief Transformation and Customer Experience Officer said the bank has form a division to follow the performance of the project. The project will consume 100 million birr that is separate with the budget that will allocate as a loan.
The president indicated that despite they have been targeted to commence the project before the government announced the cancelation of 27 percent bond purchase under NBE bill directive, the government decision will encourage the initiative.
The bank leaders said that in September Dashen has been reduced the interest rate for loan on some type of business. “Following the government decision to stop the 27 percent bond on every loan ware also revising our loan interest rate that will be announced soon,” Asfaw added.
Dashen stars youth job program in six cities
Program to help electrify off-grid places
Lighting Africa is closing out its lighting Ethiopia program. The overall goal of the project was to work with clients/companies working in the off-grid lighting sector to develop a commercial market for high quality solar lanterns and kits that enable access to cleaner and safer off-grid lighting for 11.8 million people by December 2019. Lighting Africa/Ethiopia piloted a new market development approach that sought to address the entry barriers and other challenges impeding the growth of the sector.
Thus far, the program has successfully electrified about 12 million people with quality verified solar technologies, trained over 300 solar technicians, Solar distributors, retailers and 14 MFIs. In addition, the program reached over 20 million people with Consumer education campaigns.
Lighting Africa, a joint IFC-World Bank Program, aims to enable access to off-gird lighting and energy services for those not connected to the grid, by mobilizing the private sector to build sustainable markets for affordable, high quality, modern off-grid solar products. Lighting Africa Project in Ethiopia activities kicked off in October 2015. The program works with solar product manufacturers, distributors and retailers, government agencies, finance institutions and other stakeholders to improve market systems and address a range of market barriers that include regulatory constraints, market spoilage from poor-quality products, low consumer awareness levels, and financial bottlenecks.
According to the world bank, the electrification program in Ethiopia will require an estimated USD 1.5 billion over its first five years. The government has hopes to provide electricity to all Ethiopians by 2025. Currently, only 44 percent of the country is electrified, around 60 million in Ethiopia alone lack access to electricity. Since an overwhelming part of the country’s power is generated through hydropower plants, the solar energy sector in Ethiopia is still in its earliest stages of development
With energy demand expected to grow by around 10% annually and an estimated population of around 110 million, Ethiopia has power generation capacity of around 4.5 GW at present, most of it hydropower. The government intends to install more large hydro as well as renewable as it chases the unlikely target of hitting 17.3 GW of capacity by next year. Ethiopia’s state-owned utility the Ethiopian Electric Utility (EEU) has issued an in a process of bid to seek developers to deploy solar mini-grids in 25 villages, with the projects financed by the African Development Bank and has 12 ongoing mini grid solar projects. 80% of rural households rely on fuel-based light sources, predominantly kerosene, The three main energy carriers in Ethiopia are oil products, electricity (from solar radiation, water, wind, heat) and bioethanol (from sugarcane).
Nyala Insurance registers the highest gross profits
Boosts paid-up capital to 530 million birr
Nyala Insurance S.C (NISCO) announced that it amassed a gross profit of 184.3 million birr, an amount said to be the highest from the Ethiopian private insurers, in the 2018/19 fiscal year.
Kemal Mohammed, Chairman of the Board of Directors, presenting the company’s annual performance report to the shareholders who attended the 25th Shareholders’ General and the 18th Extra Ordinary General Meeting held at Sheraton Addis on 21st December 2019, declared that NISCO has advanced its profit margin by 15 percent compared with the preceding fiscal year.
The chairman in his report outlined that the company’s total income has also increased from Birr 498.1 million to Birr 547 million, a 10 per cent jump as compared to the previous fiscal year.
Despite loads of economic and political challenges happened to the nation during the captioned fiscal year, Nyala Insurance has recorded the top profit margin from the private insurers for a third time in its history.
The board chairman also revealed that the total asset of the company reached Birr 2.1 billion, depicting an increase by 7.5% over similar period last year.
Yared Mola, Chief Executive Officer of Nyla Insurance S.C., on his part said that the significant achievements realized for a couple of years are the results of thoughtfully designed business development strategies and risk management techniques that NISCO has already put into action.
Despite year- to- year insurance claim rise in the Ethiopian insurance industry, NISCO was overwhelmingly able to maintain its total claim expenses just by deploying a variety of operational techniques, providing basic safety-related trainings to its customers and applying other business strategies.
To that end, Yared added, the total claim of the company was maintained at Birr 162 million in the 2018/19 fiscal year, which is a lesser amount as compared with the preceding year.
On the other hand, the shareholders unanimously agreed on their 18th Extraordinary Meeting to boost the company’s paid- up capital from Birr 416 million to Birr 530.4 so as to firm up the company’s level of competiveness and role in the nation’s insurance market.
As far as the human capital is concerned, Yared said NISCO has devised a Graduate Training Program (GTP) by screening and training fresh graduates from multi-disciplinary fields to solve scarcity of skilled human power in the insurance profession, and he added, so far more than 80 young people have joined the company in three rounds. He also mentioned the fourth round of GTP (GTP-IV) has already been launched.
Yared went on to say that Nyala Insurance is exerting utmost efforts to enhance its level of competitiveness by introducing new insurance products, revamping its business process and customer service delivery levels with innovative ideas and technology-based service provisions.
In conclusion, the board chairman acknowledged the shareholders, management, staff, business partners, regulatory bodies for their unconditional contribution for the positive achievements Nyala Insurance S.C realized.
ECX starts warehouse receipt finance
Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) introduces warehouse receipt financing (WRF) in collaboration with the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE).
The collateralized commodity finance project that initially was introduced by maize at the center at Nekempt and Bure warehouses supported by International Finance Corporation, a private sector wing of the World Bank.
Wondimagegnehu Negera, CEO of ECX, will help maize farmers, cooperatives, traders and processors to store the grain at the electronic trading platform warehouse as collateral to access credit.
The scheme would be managed by CBE, the state owned financial giant that it’s the first financial partner when ECX commence operation 11 years ago, who will provide the finance without any additional collateral when clients handover the good receiving not (GRN) that issued by the branch warehouses at the current stage at Nekempt and Bure.
Yinager Dessie, Governor of National Bank of Ethiopia and Board Chair of ECX said that expanding access to finance is one of the major strategies of the government and the current initiative is part of that.
He reminded that the government decision to provide finance on movable assets as a collateral, a proclamation that ratified by the parliament recently, and the current new initiative of ECX is additional opportunity for access to finance than the traditional unmovable asset based collateral.
“It will support the country agriculture sector and farmers,” he added.
The WRF is expected to solve the working capital shortage that currently actors face.
This is particularly important for farmers who often lack bankable collateral and are therefore forced to sell their crops immediately after harvest when prices tend to be at their lowest, according to the statement of ECX. The loan would be give on three and two months refund period for suppliers and buyers respectively.
According to the statement cooperatives are also expected to be a major beneficiary as they can utilize the warehouse infrastructure to offer improved finance and marketing solutions to their member farmers.
It added that large scale agribusinesses will benefit as well because they can use their inventories to unlock the additional liquidity that can help increase output, product quality and competitiveness.
