Ethiopian Airlines sign billion dollar deal with US companies

Ethiopian airlines is paying the US company General Electric US $ 473.5 million for a ten year engine maintenance

borkena
June 26,2018

United States’s under secretary of commerce, Gilbert Kaplan, led a large delegation to Ethiopia composed of the business community and officials from across the US government to visit Ethiopian Airlines in Addis Ababa and held discussion with Ethiopian Airlines management.

They reportedly discussed partnerships between United States companies and Ethiopian Airlines in a range of areas including construction and operation new ports “to achieve even greater growth” [for the airline]

And Ethiopian singed nearly a billion dollar deals with a company in the United States.

As per the deal, General Electirc (GE), a multinational company incorporated in New York, is to provide Ethiopian with twelve aircraft engines at a cost of US $444 million.

The company is also to provide a ten years maintenance service for one of Africa’s leading airline which has managed to dispatch 100 aircraft in the air. And that would cost Ethiopian Airlines another US $ 473.5 million.

Furthermore, the airline singed a US$10.2 million deal with Honeywell for the expansion of Bole international airport. $US 7.2 million worth Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) service contract is also signed.

Tewolde Gebremariam, CEO of Ethiopian Airlines, is quoted as saying “…These latest deals further solidify the commercial relations between U.S. firms and Ethiopian Airlines Group and amount to billions of U.S. dollars in business and thousands of jobs. With Ethiopian Vision 2025, fast growth, more business collaborations lie in the years ahead.”

Mr. Kaplan remarked on trade relation between Ethiopia and United States citing the case of Boeing. He added ” “Ethiopian Airlines is a great partner for the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. business community.”

It is to be recalled that prime minister Abiy Ahmed’s administration introduced economic reform measures along the line of liberalizing the economy and the Airline is one of the key Ethiopian government asset to be partially privatized in what is said to be is an effort to overcome foreign currency shortage.



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