.Collects 3 bln USD
ADDIS ABABA–Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) reported that it has earned 9.4 billion birr (347.7 million USD) profit over the last six months. During the presentation of a sixmonth report lately, Bacha Gina, President of CBE told The Ethiopian Herald that CBE has also provided 40.7 billion birr as loan and collected three billion USD in foreign exchange from remittance, exports, and others, achieving 93 percent of the plan.
Remittance takes the lion’s share of the forex earning. CBE has also mobilized 29.8 billion birr in deposit, achieving 92 percent of the plan. In terms of debt collection, the Bank has only managed to achieve 70 percent of its plan which is 21.8 billion birr. As to the President, the failure is mainly due to the fact that loan payments from mega-projects have not been collected /recovered on time. During the first half of the budget year, the Bank has also collected 59 new branches, increasing and expanding its physical outlets to 1,346.
The new branches have already seen deposits worth of 188.1 million Birr. “With over 1.5 million new bank accounts opened, the Bank has now 20.3 million customers,” he said. While the bank has hired 1,220 new staff, all in all, it has now more than 33 thousand employees in its branches across the country. The instability in some part of the country, shortage of foreign currency and inflation particularly in agricultural products are some of the challenges that the bank faced for the last few years, Bacha added.
Herald January 31/2019
BY MULATU BELACHEW
