Ethiopian man turning recycled paper into furniture. Small company takes the Ethiopian staple Injera global. Ethiopian secures $10.35m to produce silk and honey - Africa Review. Ethiopian entrepreneurs struggle as command economy soars. By Aaron Maasho ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - In Ethiopia, where state spending rather than private enterprise has been the driving force behind double-digit economic growth, tech entrepreneurs like Araya Lakew feel stuck in the slow lane.
Five years ago, the 34-year-old spotted a niche for a website matching buyers and sellers of second-hand cars in a nation where prices often rise even as vehicles age because of high tariffs on imports. His website, Mekina.net, receives 316,000 hits a month and adds 20 cars a day to its sales list but he has struggled to expand beyond the capital because of poor Internet penetration and a ropey mobile network run by state monopoly Ethio Telecom. "We are only touching a tiny surface of the market," Araya told Reuters. "We try to optimise what we have as there are a lot of obstacles to growth. " "The way things stand, this sector may not survive," said Markos Lemma, co-founder of iceaddis, a technology hub in Addis Ababa that supports entrepreneurs.
Ethiopia's budding entrepreneurs thwarted by red tape. Éthiopie : en Amérique, les chaussures de Tikur Abay gagnent du terrain. Dans ce dossier, tour d'horizon de huit PME africaines qui rêvent de conquérir l'Amérique grâce à l'AGOA, accord de libre-échange avec les États-Unis reconduit jusqu'en 2025. 1,4 million de paires de chaussures fabriquées par an pour près de 11 millions d’euros de chiffre d’affaires… L’usine de Tikur Abay, en périphérie d’Addis-Abeba, tourne à plein régime et ne cesse d’augmenter sa production.
Perspectives Le marché américain représente 15 % de ses ventes, le reste étant réalisé en Italie et en Afrique de l’Est, mais aussi localement. « Avec d’autres facteurs, l’Agoa nous a permis d’augmenter notre volume de 12 % à 16 % chaque année », explique le directeur général Abebe Teklu. La prolongation de cet accord commercial ouvre à Tikur Abay de nouvelles perspectives. Pierre Blaise. Motorcycle sales in Addis Abeba spurring entrepreneurial growth of services. Since he failed to go past the 10th grade of the educational ladder, Tedros Yemane, 30, has washed cars at the locality known as Pepsi around Kera, on Dejazmach Beyene Merid Street, for the last eight years.
Making 50 Br to 60 Br a day from customers he serves near the beverage factory, Tedros says he was able to save 30,000 Br. An older sister living in Saudi Arabia sent him some money and he was able to buy a 180 CC Apache TVS motor cycle for 46,000 Br a year and half ago, with which he launched himself into a new business. In the last 18 months, Tedros has been providing delivery and taxi services, garnering loyal customers from the car repair shops and spare part shops in his locality in Nifas Silk Lafto District.
He has hired a driver for the new one, who puts it in the pool of close to 40 motor bikes that gathers in front of the Addis Abeba Abattoirs at Sidist Quter Mazoria, on Tanzania Street, waiting for their customers. Source. Ethiopia’s tech landscape: unique challenges, massive potential. Having recently visited Addis Ababa, I thought I might write down some of my impressions.
The last time I was here was over 20 years ago, as I would fly between Khartoum and Nairobi for boarding school. Needless to say, much has changed, except for the warm hospitality of the Ethiopian people. Experiencing Ethiopia Mobile carriers and their spam advertising It’s non-existent here. 2G vs 3G SIM cards “What is that!?” How a group of young Ethiopians beat unemployment. In Hawassa City in southern Ethiopia, 250 kilometres from the capital Addis Ababa, 24-year-old Mitike Paulos, her younger sister and three friends are busy producing leather bags and belts for sale.
Mitike and her sister learned the craft from their brother, who teaches at the government-run Leather Industry Development Institute in Addis Ababa. They started business in 2011 with a 35,000-birr ($2,000) loan from a small-loan lender. Www.africareport.com video - Njera Bakery, Ethiopia.