Mesenbet Shenkut, who is well known in the financial industry, has become the first female president in the history of the Addis Ababa Chamber of Commerce and Sectoral Association (AACCSA).
During the 14th General Assembly held at the Intercontinental Hotel on Thursday October 25, AACCSA members elected Mesenbet Shenkut to serve for the coming two years.
Mesenbet, who served as founding president for Abay Bank and before that as vice president of the Development Bank of Ethiopia, emerged victorious over Salahadin Khalifa, at the occasion which was attended by 1,050 members of AACCSA
Wednesday, the city Sectoral Association elected Abebaw Mekonen to serve as president for another term. He also automatically becomes vice president of the city chamber.
The other elected board members include: Aster Solomon, Kibret Abebe, Sara Yirga, Netsanet Lemmesa, Bekele Tsegaye, Tesfaye Negash, Abebayehu Girma, Aklilu Gebre and Ferezer Sieme.
AACCSA elects first female president
Over 23 billion birr road projects launched
Ethiopian Road Authority (ERA) awarded eight contracts for road construction projects to four local and five foreign companies. The agreements are worth 13.3 billion birr and will include 749km of asphalt roads in the Benishangul-Gumuz, Oromia, Amhara, Somali and SNNP regions.
The projects which are part of the second GTP are explicitly financed by the Ethiopian government. The Authority is expected to sign seven additional agreements worth more than 10 billion birr in the coming weeks.
At the signing of the agreement, last week, Habtamu Tegegne Director General of ERA stressed the need for completing the projects on time.
“The projects are going to add value to the socio-economic lives of the residents,” said Tegene, “when we make quality roads on time taxpayers will be satisfied.”
New logistics strategy embraces mobile app
Aims at improving sector’s efficiency
A legal framework for forming a National Logistics Council which follows the National Logistics Strategy has been drafted and is expected to be discussed with stakeholders.
Early last month the Council of Ministers ratified the National Logistics Strategy to improve the country’s very weak logistics sector.
The establishment of the council is part of the strategy. It will include the private sector and will be responsible for regularly following logistics. Mekonnen Abera, Director General of Ethiopian Maritimes Authority Affairs (EMAA), said that the draft legal framework for the formation of the council has been developed. He added that the strategy has been studied over the past few years to improve the sector and has been approved by the Council of Ministers. “Following the approval of the strategy we have developed the legal framework,” he said.
“The logistics sector should be led by a high level leadership in a coordinated manner’ so we are forming the council,” Mekonnen added. He said that the draft framework would be discussed with stakeholders soon along with other priorities to be implemented to go along with the logistics strategy.
The council will also be supported by the logistics office which was previously called the Logistics Transformation Office (LTO) in a study presented to the Ministry of Transport in 2015.
LTO will be in charge of providing professionals to realize the strategy’s implementation. The office will also provide analyzed documents to the council. With high level leaders involved in the council the logistics strategy should be implemented harmoniously, Mekonnen said.
According to the study developed in 2015 by Nathan Associates Inc. a US based company, with the support of United Nation Development Program (UNDP), the council may be chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport. The National Logistics Council is responsible for overseeing the entire logistics system in the country.
On Thursday October 25, EMAA in collaboration with Addis Ababa Advanced Information Technology Plc unveiled a mobile phone application to automate the logistics sector.
Mekonnen said that the application would make the logistics operation, cargo tracing, reporting and follow up in the financial and customs activity more efficient.
“The IT development in the logistics sector is one of the infrastructure pieces that must improve. As a result it is part of our National Logistics Strategy,” he added.
The logistics chief expects the new strategy to work.
He said that in the process using an application called ‘Cargocanal’ would be mandatory for relevant actors like freight forwarders, shipping agents, and government offices.
Mulugeta Assefa, Deputy CEO of Addis Ababa Advanced Information Technology Plc, said that the technology that is also available on a mobile app will provide real time information about where the cargo is, arrivals at ports, improving the efficiency of the freight forwarders and other relevant marine operations.
The clients of freight forwarder would also be able to access keys and passwords to follow their cargo on this new web application.
Mohamed Ahmed Mohamud, Minister of Investment Promotion of Somaliland, who attended the launching of Cargocanal held at ECA, told Capital that his country is interested in applying this kind of technology. “We are here to see it because it is a good undertaking for Somaliland and Ethiopia, which are working on the Berbera Port as shareholders,” he said.
“It is the technology that will modernize the movements of goods with cost effective and short periods of transportation,” he added.
“We share the idea and may promote it in our country,” he added.
President Uhuru Kenyatta becomes Goodwill Ambassador of African Chambers of Commerce
The Pan African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PACCI) held its first of a series of business forum 2018 -2019 entitled “What the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (Afcfta) Means For Your Business,” at Weston Hotel in Nairobi on 23rd and 24th October, 2018. Chairman of the Kenyan National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KNCCI), Kiprono Kittoni, and Executive Director of PACCI, Kebour Ghenna, welcomed the attendees and made introductory remarks regarding the current state of trade and the benefits and challenges of the Continental Free Trade Agreement for countries and firms.
President Uhuru Kenyatta, who received the African chambers of commerce presidents at State House, called for expeditious implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) treaty that was signed in Kigali, Rwanda. He urged all African chambers of commerce leaders to lobby their governments that have not yet signed the agreement, to do so and ratify the new agreement so that the continent can move together towards the realization of the Pan African vision of an “integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa”. At the State House meeting, President Kenyatta accepted the request lodged by Olive Kigongo, Uganda National Chamber of Commerce and Industry President, to become a Goodwill Ambassador of African Chamber of Commerce.
In total some 200 business leaders from Africa discussed the difficulties small and medium-sized companies face in their development and commercial expansion, and said they felt isolated due to the great amount of work and hence lose touch with innovative ways to develop and expand. The Forum featured speeches by Mr. Peter Mihok, Chairman of the International Chambers of Commerce, Peter Biwott, Kenya’s Export Commissioner, Christopher John Forster, President of the Sierra Leone Chamber of Commerce, and others, who gave tips on how to promote industrial development through diversification, regional value chain development, the issuance of certificate of origin, the use of ATA carnets
The forum made over 15 recommendations including that chambers of commerce become involved in the development of the TVET Curriculum as a way to improve skilled manpower for enterprise growth and to anchor chambers of commerce as global trade facilitation agencies to ensure that the issuance of CoO and ATA Carnet become primary mandate of all African Chambers.
