Excessive Hotel Rates Annoy Foreign Diplomats

May 28, 2013 - The Ministry of Foreign Affairs for some some six month now has been consulting with hotels and restaurants not to make a sudden price increase for their services in relation to the 50th anniversary of the Organization of African Unity/African Union (AU), according to the Reporter. Unfortunately, many did increase the regular prices fourfold or more on average and quite a number of them are making millions of dollars in just about a week.

The dramatically increased prices in the hospitality industry especially for room and related services, annoyed not only the diplomats members who are accustomed to the regular prices a week before. Most embassies were seen confronting the hotels. When they found nothing satisfactory, they sent complains to the Ministry.

Worried by the number of complaints, MoFA called on the hotels and Ministry of Culture and Tourism (MoCT) on many occasions to at least consider and not to overstate the rate of changes in the prices. However, the increase in the charges of many hotels was found to be more than fourfold. A USD 100 costing room service now goes for $400 to 500.

Few months back, Mihretab Mulugeta, director of protocol at MoFA, warned that the exaggerated increases of prices need to be taken care of before it is too late. During a meeting held with hotel owners at that time, he recalled that many hotels were found increasing prices fourfold. Even Sheraton Addis was spotted for double increase in prices during AU’s summit last year, Mihretab said.   

Sisay Teklu, director of the stakeholder’s relation directorate at the MoCT also fears that if the hiking price continues to be the trend here, Ethiopia will lose its biggest shares of the international tourism conference business. The worst is that many international conferences no longer will come to the country. However, he said that only a few hotels have increased prices and some handful of them end up below the expected number of customers. 

According to Sisay, a ten or twenty percent increment may not harm anybody in the business but it will negatively implicate if the prices are not considerate of the country’s image. Furthermore, the services provided are the other alarming areas in which the ministry says working on to address it promptly.

Source: http://www.ezega.com

Ethiopia, Brazil Sign Cooperation Agrements

 

May 27, 2013 - In Brazil’s first ever presidential visit to Ethiopia on Friday, May 24, the two countries signed four cooperation agreements that Ethiopian officials consider signal the entry of the emerging South American powerhouse into a large scale involvement in Ethiopia’s economy, according to Capital.

The two sides signed cooperation agreements in areas of agriculture, aviation science and technology as well as education. Brazil’s Foreign Minister, Antonio Patriota, signed the first three agreements with Ethiopia’s Agriculture Minister, Tefera Deribew, Transport and Communication Minister, Diriba Kuma, and Science and Technology Minister, Mahamuda Gass.      

The agreements were signed in Addis Ababa after Brazil’s President, Dilma Vana Rousseff, and Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn held talks on bilateral cooperation at the Prime Minister’s Office.

The Latin American emerging power has growing interests in Africa particularly in the areas of mining while African countries are showing growing interests for investments and financial deals with Brazil.

Accordingly, there has been growing diplomatic relations between the two sides over the last 10 years. During this decade, for example, Brazil opened 17 embassies in Africa raising its diplomatic missions in the continent to 37, according to a Brazilian Foreign Ministry official who came with the presidential delegate. Its embassy in Addis Ababa is on the list of the re-opened.

Rousseff has, therefore,  come to Addis Ababa with a number of senior officials including her Foreign Minister, Antonio Patriota, Education Minister as well as directors of Petrobras and Brazil’s Development Bank.

According to the Foreign Ministry official, the two leaders have discussed on future cooperation in the areas of mining and investment financing.

Rousseff is in Addis Ababa to attend the Special Summit of the African Union that took place yesterday in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Pan-African organization. On Saturday morning she took part in a high level debate of African leaders at the AU headquarters. She also spoke at the special summit held at the Millennium Hall of Addis Ababa.

Source: http://www.ezega.com

Brazil Development Bank Gives $1 Billion to Ethiopia Rail

Ethiopia will receive $1 billion in funding from the Brazilian Development Bank to build a section of a railway that will be extended to connect to neighboring South Sudan, a Foreign Ministry official said.

Andrade Gutierrez Participacoes SA of Brazil will build the link running from the capital, Addis Ababa, to Jimma about 439 kilometers (273 miles) to the southwest, Taye Atskeselassie, director general for the Americas at the ministry, said in an interview on May 24.

The bank “is willing to finance the project,” he said after Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn met Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. “The technical side has been finalized, it’s only the financing part; it’s a matter of the details.” Construction will begin “soon,” he said.

Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most populous nation, needs funding to build 4,744 kilometers of electrified railway lines at a cost of 110.8 billion birr ($5.9 billion) as it seeks to develop a cheaper alternative to moving goods by road. Economic growth may slow to 6.5 percent this year and next, compared with average growth of 8.7 percent over the past five years, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Export-Import Bank of China signed a loan agreement worth nearly $3 billion for a railway from Addis Ababa to the port of Doraleh in neighboring Djibouti, the state-owned Ethiopian Radio and Television Agency reported last week.

The government of Turkey is funding a separate route, while Ethiopia is negotiating with Russia and India to finance and build other rail projects, Ethiopian Railways Corp. said on April 26.

Officials from Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil’s state-run oil company, attended last week’s meeting, Taye said. “They are very much interested in doing business as well here, but no specific issues have been raised at this time,” he said.

Hailemariam and Rousseff signed cooperation agreements on air transport, science and technology, education and agriculture, Ethiopia’s State Minister of Foreign Affairs Berhane Gebrekristos said.

“This is a turning point in Ethiopian-Brazilian relations,” Berhane said.

To contact the reporter on this story: William Davison in Addis Ababa at wdavison3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at asguazzin@bloomberg.net

Source:  http://ethioprofessionals.com