Japanese trading houses are in talks with Ethiopian coffee exporters to resume purchases of beans from the Horn of Africa country, a year after imports were slashed when several contaminated shipments were discovered.
“Some Japanese businesses are seriously negotiating with Ethiopian businesses for the resumption of imports to Japan,” Kinichi Komano, Japan’s ambassador to Ethiopia, said in an interview today at his office in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
Japan curbed imports of Ethiopian coffee last year after shipments were seized between April and June by Japanese customs officials and found to contain “abnormally high” pesticide residues in the beans. Japanese imports of Ethiopian coffee plunged to 8,000 metric tons in 2008, from 29,000 tons a year earlier.
Ethiopia is Africa’s biggest coffee producer. Japan had previously purchased about 20 percent of the country’s exports, making it Ethiopia’s third-largest market after Germany and Saudi Arabia, according to the Trade Ministry.
Mocha beans from Ethiopia are highly regarded in Japan for their distinctive flavor and last year’s ban forced coffee shop owners to seek new blends.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (APA) – Ethiopia has received a record of $389 million in remittances over a six months period from September to February 2009, reflecting an increase of 19.4 percent.
According to the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, the increase in remittances is due to the devaluation of birr over other foreign currencies.
Currently, one US dollar is equivalent to 11 birr and 20 cents, up from 9 birr a few months back.
The bank indicated in its six months report that the devaluation encouraged people living outside Ethiopia to send more money to Ethiopia.
The six months remittance exceeds last year’s by 19.4 percent, according to the Bank’s report. Remittances for the same period last year was $313.5 million.
The remittance flow to the country has increased by an average of 44.6 percent in the last six years.
It is estimated that there are over on million Ethiopians and foreign citizens with Ethiopian origins living outside the country.
The men’s and women’s elite fields for Monday’s 113th edition of the Boston Marathon were bolstered yesterday with the addition of top respective contenders Tekeste Kebede and Elfenesh Alemu. Both hail from Ethiopia and both have a past association with the fabled Hopkinton-to-Boston trek.
Kebede, a 27-year-old native of Addis Ababa, ran Boston in 2007 and was in third place nearing the 25-mile mark in Brookline before succumbing to dehydration issues. Kebede has finished in the top three at six major marathons with a best time of 2:10:36 at January’s Rock ’n’ Roll Marathon in Tempe, Ariz.
Alemu, 33, of Arsi, has competed in three previous Boston races, finishing third in 2002, and second in both ’04 and ’05. Alemu has won two Japanese marathons, at Nagano (2:24:55 in 2000) and Tokyo (2:24:47 in ’03).
Championing 5K
While the marathon has attracted an official field of 26,400, the inaugural 5K partner race on Sunday will feature 4,000 runners.
Among the scheduled participants are three former Boston champions celebrating anniversaries of their victories: Norway’s Ingrid Kristiansen (20th anniversary, 1989), New Zealand’s Lorraine Moller (25th, 1984) and Ireland’s Neil Cusack (35th, 1974). . . .
Immediately following the 5K event, there will be a new series of four one-mile races for men’s and women’s elite athletes and high schoolers. Ian Dobson, a nine-time All-America and former Stanford University teammate of U.S. marathon hopeful Ryan Hall, has been added to the men’s mile field. Challengers include Rob Myers, a three-time U.S. National 1,500-meter champion, and Ireland’s two-time Olympian Alistair Cragg, a European Indoor Champion at 3,000 meters. Marblehead native Shalane Flanagan, who won a bronze medal at 10,000 meters in the Beijing Games, heads the women’s field with former Villanova star Carrie Tollefson, a prime threat.
Rodgers’ cause
Four-time Boston champion Bill Rodgers, who will be running as a member of Athletes For A Cure to raise awareness and funds for prostate cancer research, is a cancer survivor with a long family history of the disease. One family victim, great grandfather Daniel T. Molloy, was among the first Irishmen to graduate from Yale University in 1902. Molloy later became a Hartford policeman and worked as a gardener for literary great Mark Twain. . . .
Television and radio commentators should have oodles of fun if four-time champion and course record-holder Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot (2:07:14) and Frankfurt course record-holder (2:07:21) Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot – no relation – come running side-by-side down Boylston Street to the finish on Monday.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (UNICEF) – The Government of Japan today announced a $6 million donation to UNICEF Ethiopia for reducing the vulnerability of children to the impact of rising food prices.
This contribution, one of the largest from the Government of Japan to UNICEF Ethiopia, comes as Ethiopia confronts the impact of the global economic crisis. The food price inflation particularly affected the poorest people who do not have enough land to grow all the food they need in this subsistence agriculture dominated economy.
“Rising prices have added to the daily survival challenges faced by vulnerable communities in Ethiopia,” said Kinichi Komano, Ambassador of Japan to Ethiopia. “The Government of Japan recognizes these pressures and is providing this support through UNICEF to help mitigate the effects on the most vulnerable victims, the children.”
The Japanese donation will support:
• 870,000 children living in food insecure districts of Oromia and Amhara Regions through the Ethiopian Ministry of Health’s community-based nutrition interventions.
• Families of eight thousand particularly vulnerable children living in the food insecure districts through social protection programmes providing cash grants and revolving credit to set up small businesses.
• Delivery of basic health services to over half-a-million children through the roll-out of urban health extension programme in Addis Ababa.
“The global economic crisis need to be confronted to maintain the child survival gains achieved in Ethiopia over the past decade,” said Ted Chaiban, UNICEF Representative to Ethiopia. “This support from the Government of Japan will help the country address the risks and ensure that it consolidates and sustains its achievements on behalf of Ethiopia’s children.”
Under-five mortality rate in Ethiopia have gone down over 40 per cent since 1990 and the roll-out of the Government of Ethiopia’s health extension programme, which provides basic preventative health, nutrition and sanitation interventions at the community level, holds promise for continued improvement in child health, provided it is adequately supported.
“UNICEF applauds the Government of Ethiopia for its commitment to improving child health and nutrition, and the Government of Japan for its continued support to this sector in Ethiopia,” said Chaiban. “Children should not be further disadvantaged by the global recession. This donation sets a positive precedent for substantive investments in Ethiopia’s development, particularly during this difficult period of economic crisis which is also affecting Japan.”
The Japanese donation to UNICEF is part of a larger $13 million allocation for Ethiopia by the Government of Japan to tackle the impact of food price increases and climate change on children.
About UNICEF
UNICEF is on the ground in over 150 countries and territories to help children survive and thrive, from early childhood through adolescence. The world’s largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments.
For further information please contact:
Yoshinori Kitamura, Embassy of Japan, [email protected] 0115 511088
Dr. Kerida Mcdonald, UNICEF Ethiopia, [email protected], tel: 0115 184018
Indrias Getachew, UNICEF Ethiopia, [email protected], tel: 0115 184026
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (APA) – The Tigray People Liberation Front (Woyanne)-led Ethiopian regime’s revenue authorities have arrested about 100 business owners in connection with Value Added Tax (VAT) fraud in Addis Ababa, APA learns here on Wednesday.
The Ethiopian Revenue and Customs Authority (RCA) has this week launched a crack dawn on businesses in Addis Ababa after getting information that some businesses were not properly implementing the VAT law, which Ethiopia introduced some three years ago.
The authority announced on Wednesday that so far 46 businesses have been identified for “illegally” using the VAT law and cash registration methods in their business in Addis Ababa.
APA observed a number of shops shut down in Piazza and Merkato business areas of Addis Ababa.
According to the authority, those arrested will be charged.
Hotels, jewelers, cafés and restaurants are among the businesses that have been shut down by the crack down.
The authority used its own intelligence officers to arrest those involved in the fraud. Many of the businesses were accused of not issuing VAT invoices to the authority.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA — World Bank is set to triple its reconstruction and development lending geared towards developing countries to mitigate the harsh impact of the global economic downturn. The bank’s US$12 billion loan projection has been raised to US$ 35 billion to help achieve the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) goals.
{www:Ken Ohashi} country director of Ethiopia and Sudan elucidated the bank’s crisis response and the revised growth forecast for the 2009 fiscal year. According to him, the revised forecast GDP growth of Sub Saharan African countries will be marked by a 2.4 per cent decline, indicating a 1.8 cutback from their initial projection.
In a roundtable discussion with journalists last week in Addis Ababa, Mr. Ohashi said that IBRD, faced with the impact of the crisis in Africa, plans to triple its lending to 35 billion USD for the 2009 fiscal year to enable developing countries cope with the situation. Over the next three weeks IBRD will lend an amount of 100 billion USD through its fast disbursing development policy (DPL).
Meanwhile, the International Financial Corporation (IFC) of the bank is also planning to lend an investment volume of 12 billion USD per year for the next three years, the banks crisis response document reads. According to the document, the IFC has launched new crisis response initiatives in both investment and advisory services. Financing for the new initiatives is expected to total about 30 billion USD over the next three years.
Streamlining food crisis support
Vulnerability Financing Response (VFR) a facility launched by the bank in order to streamline crisis support to poor and vulnerable countries has so far facilitated 1.2 billion USD in response to the global food crisis while trying to launch a multi-donor country loan trust fund to provide rapid social responses that will prioritize the agriculture sector as well as employment.
The United Kingdom has announced its intention to contribute to this fund, the document reads.
According to the banks revised growth forecast Nigeria will register 2.9% GDP growth a 2.9 % cutback from its earlier projection. Similarly South Africa’s GDP growth will only be 1% a 1.2% difference from its earlier forecast.
Japanese trading houses are in talks with Ethiopian coffee exporters to resume purchases of beans from the Horn of Africa country, a year after imports were slashed when several contaminated shipments were discovered..jpg "Elfenesh Alemu")
The men’s and women’s elite fields for Monday’s 113th edition of the Boston Marathon were bolstered yesterday with the addition of top respective contenders Tekeste Kebede and Elfenesh Alemu. Both hail from Ethiopia and both have a past association with the fabled Hopkinton-to-Boston trek.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (UNICEF) – The Government of Japan today announced a $6 million donation to UNICEF Ethiopia for reducing the vulnerability of children to the impact of rising food prices.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA — World Bank is set to triple its reconstruction and development lending geared towards developing countries to mitigate the harsh impact of the global economic downturn. The bank’s US$12 billion loan projection has been raised to US$ 35 billion to help achieve the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) goals.