Post by dodona79 on Jan 8, 2006 19:20:03 GMT -5
idiot. u somalis are full of it.
We are agressive
We are very strong
The warlords dont play that game
WE controlled everything
We defeated ethiopia
We sold ethiopians as slaves
We were never slaves because we are "crazy"
We karbaashed the italians british and ethiopians all in one time
ETC ETC ETC
but the facts are
I can't even begin to understand why people compare Ethiopia to Somalia. Maybe all the lies somalis tell had something to do with it.
I CAN GO ON FOREVER
WE ETHIOPIANS AT LEAST DO SOME WORK THAT IS Y WE HAVE A HISTORY AND ARE MAKING A HISTORY.
1)Noah Samara (Xm SATTELITE FOUNDER)1.5 BILLION. Expected to grow to 5 billion in the next 2 years. Building a huge company in ethiopia.
www.planet4589.org/space/jsr/csg/csg1.html
www3.esu.edu/%5Cnoahsamaraspeech.asp
www.worldspace.ae/english/corporate.asp
www.worldspace.com/press/pressimages.html
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/04/AR2005080401969.html?sub=AR
2)T. Dosho Shifferaw
(FOUND BOWFLEX)800 million. Excpected to grow fast this year. (FAT AMERICANS lol)
www.dosho.com/About_DDI/dosho_bio.html
3) DAMN IT I FORGOT HIS NAME BUT HE HELPED INVENT GPS (GLOBAL POSTIONING SYSTEM)
4) Sheik Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi.
Sheik Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi. Why is his name sound Muslim. Well he got all his welath in Saudi Arabia and as u might have already known. You have to change your name and relegion to live in saudi arabia. 6 Billion dollars. Excpected to grow to around 10 Billion thanks to the high price of oil. He currently hires over 160,000 Ethiopians. he is also planing to build the Tallest Building in the whole african continent and some disalination plants.
rds.yahoo.com/S=96062883/K=Al-Amoudi/v=2/SID=e/TID=I016_80/l=IVI/SIG=12uh260ls/EXP=1108862781/*-http://www.ethioguide.com/aa-ethioguide/ethioguide/postcard/al-amoudi1.jpg
www.addistribune.com/Archives/2002/02/15-02-02/Midroc.htm
www.geeskaafrika.com/person_31mar05.htm
www.pixagogo.com/6999914471
www.pixagogo.com/8993914934
6) Nebi Alemu
Nebi Alemu (tadias Ethiopian-American Magazine) 22 million dollars growing fast
tadias.com/
7) Tesfu Sintayhu
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/04/AR2005050400991.html
Tesfu Sintayhu 4 million . growing fast. started 6 month ago IN THER 20'S
Mining A Rainbow Of Yellow Pages
By S. Mitra Kalita
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 23, 2005; Page LZ05
Flipping through entrepreneur Tesfu Sintayhu's Yellow Pages yields some expected results: dentists who will whiten teeth, contractors who install granite countertops and lawyers promising divorces in three weeks or less.
But Sintayhu's pages also contain the name of the capital of Swaziland, the country code for calling Kenya, deejays who can remix Ethiopian music and answers to questions on the U.S. citizenship exam.
Last year, Sintayhu and three friends published what they believe is the first African Yellow Pages in the United States. Intended to help African immigrants, from the newly arrived to the firmly established, the 456-page publication offers bus schedules, information on countries and their embassies, travel resources, listings of schools, churches, mosques and hospitals, and a business directory that runs from African stores to video services.
Now, from their office in Falls Church, the team behind the African Yellow Pages is preparing to publish a second edition this summer. They promise that it will be bigger, better and, in some ways, less African.
"The best gynecologist may not be an African," said Ahadu Woubshet, a managing partner. "We're targeting the market for any business owner. . . . from multinationals to small mom-and-pop shops."
Woubshet said that as long as a company wants to do business with Africa or its emigres in the U.S., he can talk them into buying advertising space in the book. And by that logic, Woubshet suggests he should be talking to most businesses in Northern Virginia, which has been redefined and transformed by immigration.
On doorsteps, in supermarkets and at trade fairs, ethnic business directories are piling up one heavy book after another. Vega Hispanic Yellow Pages, which was distributed in the Washington area for decades, was sold last year for $4 million to Hispanic Yellow Pages Network LLC, a growing Tampa, Fla., chain trying to acquire Latino directories nationwide. Business directories targeting Korean, Arab, Indian and Chinese immigrants also serve the region.
Managing partner Mimi Alemayehou said the competing books were a source of inspiration as she worked on the African version.
"We looked at them," said Alemayehou, who also works as an international consultant for organizations doing development work in Africa. "Why reinvent the wheel when we can just learn from them? There's definitely a need for Yellow Pages dedicated to specific immigrant communities. A family arrives in America and they want to know where to get their spices, where to take an English as a Second Language class."
With full-page ads costing about $3,000 and DaimlerChrysler Corp. serving as their lone corporate sponsor, the partners estimate the first book generated $250,000 in revenue.
"When you get into smaller and smaller niches, the prospect gets more daunting," said Charles Laughlin, an analyst with the Princeton, N.J.-based Kelsey Group, which tracks the phone book and directory industry. "Small businesses tend to think, 'If I am going to spend a dollar, I want to get 5, 10, 20 in return. If they can demonstrate that members of the community favor the businesses, they may have a reasonable proposition."
Beyond the book, Sintayhu and his partners have lofty goals. They want the Yellow Pages to promote African unity and help Americans get beyond images of Africa as impoverished, war-torn and famine-ridden. They don't ignore the problems -- statistics on AIDS in Africa fill the book, for example -- but the entrepreneurs also cite a surge in development on the continent, especially in Ethiopia (where all four partners were born), the boom in the Nigerian Stock Exchange, tourism in Mozambique and the deep pockets of African immigrants. In the 2000 Census, the African emigre population in the U.S. was shown to earn a median income of $42,000 and number around 881,000 -- although the Yellow Pages publishers assert that the number is closer to 1.8 million.
This area has more African immigrants than any other region in the U.S., with many of them lured by jobs at the World Bank or other development agencies. But the publishers of the Yellow Pages say the mainstream knows little about their community.
"Half the population doesn't know we have cars and buildings in Africa," said Ben Mitiku, vice president and co-founder of the African Yellow Pages.
About 50,000 copies of the first directory were printed. In early April, they handed some out at an African bridal show. Alemayehou recently brought a suitcase of books with her to London, where she attended a conference on the African diaspora.
Like the entrepreneurs who fill the pages of their book, they are trying to think of new markets, trying to think beyond their yellow book, trying to think big. There's been interest in a directory for New York's African community. Perhaps other marketing opportunities can be mined if a database of African businesses is created, they said. "This is going to be a very, very big business," said Sintayhu, who quit his job as a Network Programmer to work on the Yellow Pages and other products full time. "I see the potential."
8 )Mr. Gezahgen Kebede
Mr. Gezahgen Kebede and Garad . helped america companies. invest 7 billion in ethiopia. assets = 400 million. growing with economy.
Ethiopians Living In U.S Seek U.S. Investment
With 65 million people, Ethiopia is the third-most populous nation in Africa after Nigeria and Egypt. Its bustling capital city, Addis Ababa, is home to the Organization of African Unity.
But years of Marxist dictatorship and a devastating war with neighboring Eritrea have taken their toll on the country, and even though Ethiopia now has a democratic government and is at relative peace with its neighbors, and it's economy is growing rapidly..
"Trade with the U.S. isn¡¯t much, but compared to trade during the Marxist regime, we can say that it has increased dramatically," said Mohammed Yahya Garad, trade and investment counselor at the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington, D.C. "During the 1980s, there were less than 20 U.S. companies operating in Ethiopia. Today, there are over 500."
Under leftist leader Mengistu Haile Mariam, who had overthrown Emperor Haile Selassie and abolished the monarchy in 1975, Ethiopia bolstered its ties with the Soviet bloc and let its relations with the United States deteriorate. Famine ravaged the country in the mid-1980s, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 1 million people. After the fall of the Mengistu regime in 1991, a transitional government was set up, leading to Ethiopia¡¯s first multiparty general elections in 1995.
The few U.S. companies that were allowed to stay during the Mengistu years¡ªCoca-Cola, Mobil Oil and PepsiCo¡ªare today among the largest foreign investors in Ethiopia. Between 1992 and 1999, direct foreign investment came to around $1.2 billion.
But that¡¯s not enough for Garad, who said foreign investment is absolutely critical to Ethiopia¡¯s future.
"The Ethiopian government has a policy that is conducive to investment. It¡¯s one of the least corrupt countries in Africa," he told The Washington Diplomat. "There¡¯s not much we can do to alleviate our image. But we can prove to investors that as far as potential, Ethiopia has a wealth that would stagger anybody. It¡¯s very difficult to convince people of that when they see we¡¯re not self-sufficient in food. Farmers depend on rain. But at least six of our 12 rivers have the potential to be a cotton belt. If we could develop our hydroelectric potential, Ethiopia¡¯s cotton exports would surpass anything we make from coffee."
Garad said rebuilding the country¡¯s crumbling infrastructure is the numberone priority of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who came to Washington in September to dedicate the country¡¯s beautiful new $6.5 million embassy on International Drive.
"During a business forum we organized for the prime minister, the prime minister told businessmen that rail transportation is very urgently needed, and he invited private investors to look into that opportunity, as well as hydroelectricity," said Garad, who like most members of his country¡¯s professional elite speaks fluent English in addition to his native Amharic.Another opportunity for investment is the telecommunications sector. State-owned Ethiopia Telecommunications Corp. has only 435,000 (2003) phone lines in service. Mobile service is 97,800 (2003). ETC, which plans to add 1,000,000 phone lines over the next year, will itself be sold to the private sector, with PricewaterhouseCoopers advising the government on how to carry out the proposed privatization.
"The outlook is certainly more positive now than it was before," said Tshanda Kalombo, a Washington-based U.S. Commerce Department official who recently returned from a six-week assignment in Ethiopia. "The country is getting a lot of interest from the investment community. Some of that stopped when the conflict began. Before that, Ethiopia was seen as one of the most promising countries in Africa, then all of a sudden they went to war with Eritrea¡ªsort of a nonsensical conflict¡ªthen they got lumped together with the basket cases of Africa."
On June 18, Ethiopia and Eritrea signed a cessation of hostilities agreement, which is less formal than a cease-fire. "Both countries are weary of war," said Kalombo. "Both sides have been cooperating, but there¡¯s clearly a lot of distrust."
According to Kalombo¡¯s report, the positive changes that result from the end of the Ethio-Eritrean conflict should fuel U.S. commercial interest in the country. "Promising markets for U.S. exporters include aircraft and parts, vehicles and spare parts, construction equipment, agricultural equipment and supplies, telecommunications, medical products and chemicals," she said.
Much of the investment will likely come from the estimated 250,000 to 300,000 Ethiopians living in the United States. By far, the biggest community is Washington, D.C., home to around 70,000 Ethiopians. Smaller communities also flourish in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and New York.
"There¡¯s a very vibrant entrepreneurial group of Ethiopians residing in the U.S., and a number of them are professionals with their own businesses¡ªmore so than from any other African country and some Middle Eastern countries and others," said Garad. "In any major city today, you¡¯ll find two or three good Ethiopian restaurants. Here in Washington, there are over 200."
Garad, 51, graduated from the law school of Haile Selassie First University (today Addis Ababa University) and also earned a master¡¯s degree from Harvard Law School. Along with Texas businessman Gezahgen Kebede, he helped found the Ethio-American Trade and Investment Council, which today has 89 members.
Kebede, interviewed by phone from Houston, said Ethiopia faces a number of obstacles in attracting investment, chief of which is the lack of accurate information.
"Like with any other African country, a lot of American companies don¡¯t know about the potential that exists there. They see Africa as a big risk," he said. "It is risky, but any business anywhere has risks, and most of the U.S. companies really don¡¯t see beyond that. They see only what they read in newspapers and hear on TV."
Kebede said a 35-member trade delegation traveled to Ethiopia last year, producing encouraging results. One of the mission¡¯s participants, Houston-based Rift Valley Industries, will soon begin assembling laptop computers in Addis Ababa for the Ethiopian and sub-Saharan African market. The company¡¯s local partner, Garad PLC, already assembles TV sets. The venture plans to invest $7 million and employ around 100 people.
Despite the country¡¯s efforts to diversify, however, Ethiopia is still highly dependent on agricultural exports. Coffee alone accounts for 60 percent of the country¡¯s export earnings, though the sector was battered last year by Ethiopia¡¯s war with Eritrea as well as low world coffee prices.
"We haven¡¯t done a very good job marketing our coffee," said Garad. "It¡¯s really the power of advertising that, for example, makes Colombian coffee famous. Roasters know that Ethiopian coffee is superior, but they can¡¯t sell it because there¡¯s no demand at the consumer level. We are handicapped because we¡¯ve not approached it systematically. We¡¯ve been too timid to spend money on advertising. We need to take a systematic approach to the marketing of Ethiopian coffee in the United States."
Garad and Kebede are currently organizing a reverse trade mission, in which 35 to 40 Ethiopian executives will soon visit Washington, Houston and Atlanta for meetings with potential U.S. business partners.
One factor that could spark new interest in Ethiopia is the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), passed and signed into law by President Clinton in May. Under one provision of the law, which took effect Oct. 1, Ethiopia and 31 other African countries will receive duty-free treatment of textile and apparel exports to the United States.
Another growth area is tourism. Ethiopia will soon sign an open-skies agreement with the United States, which will allow U.S. airlines to compete with Ethiopian Airlines in offering routes between the two countries. Ethiopia is also applying for loan insurance and guarantees under the Overseas Private Investment Corp., a move that will help attract U.S. investment.
For more information on Ethiopia, visit the Ethio-American Trade and Investment Council¡¯s Web site at
http://www.eatic.org./
if ethiopia was peacful it would go straight up.
9)solomon bekele
Chances are good today that the quality of your taxi ride in Atlanta will be influenced by a man who was born and raised in Ethiopia and keeps his principal home in Maryland.
Solomon Bekele, 55, is Atlanta's taxi king - a multimillionaire cab company owner whose influence in the publicly regulated industry far exceeds any competitor.
www.addistribune.com/Archives/2002/01/18-01-02/Atlanta.htm
We are agressive
We are very strong
The warlords dont play that game
WE controlled everything
We defeated ethiopia
We sold ethiopians as slaves
We were never slaves because we are "crazy"
We karbaashed the italians british and ethiopians all in one time
ETC ETC ETC
but the facts are
- it is 2006 and somalia dosent have a goverment
- Somalia didnt have a history
- Somalia was forced to convert to islam from their relegion called waaq
- Somalis were always nomads with no central force (ALWAYS EVEN TODAY)
- You have to bribe someone everyday to survive in somalia
- countries such as libaria and sirra leon have more laws and order than somali and are richer than soamlia
- westerners dont go to somalia because it is the rule of the jungle that prevails.
- somalia is the poorest country in the world
they cant keep order even though there are only 4 million of them. - SOMALIS GET AROUND BY LYING ETC
- their excuse for not being rich is that they don't have a goverment
- they are disorganized
- somalia is a country that gets bossed and kicked around by ethiopia,kenya...... somalis have to be the dumbest africans ever.....they live without a government or any civil administration.......they live the way there ancestors used to live roaming the savanna and milking the camels...
- Ethiopia is doing everything she wants , not only Ethiopia but kenya, egypt and lybia are also arming your lovely warlords somalia is everyones playground The italians and many europeans also dump nuclear waste in southern somalia and indian ocean. Not only your generation but the next ones will pay a hell of price!!!!!!
- The last time you attempted an invasion was in 1977 which you got humiliatingly defeated 5 months later in 1978 even thoug somalis the soviet union armed you mad dog siad barre to his teeth from 1969 to 1977, soviet union and cuba assisted somalia with everything.
and since the 1980s to this day you are paying a heavy price for it. somalia is Ethiopias BITCH, whenever Ethiopia feels like raping somalia she just crosses the border and rape you like hell. Ethiopia drove abdi qasim salad hasan mad that he was moaning to the international community every now and then - For your info. Ethiopia is the regional power, Ethiopia has influence not only in the horn but Africa as a whole, remember AU is in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia where all African statesmen come together every year, sometimes every six months.
- The foreign aid Ethiopia gets in negligible, for your info. egypt gets the largest development aid from the USA. AIDS problems, beggars and homeless people all exist even in countries like the USA, no doubt there are many of them in your chaotic somalia that being ruled by the MOORYAN/warlord
- mogadishu is war torn, mogadishu is governementless there are not only beggars but war lords all over mogadishu that murders people for just a change. Not only pety crime and pick pocketing but your mogadishu is being pick pocketed by your MOORYANS are rob and murder people in broad day light. somalis are crying all over saying yahya...got killed in his home while he was sleeping with his wife. Your somalia is a lawless shit, its governmentless hopeless scum of the earth.
- Addis Abeba belongs to every Ethiopian citizen, for your info. there are also more than 95 embassies in Addis Abeba making it the third diplomatic city in the world next to Washington DC and Paris as Addis Abeba is also the capital city of Africa!!!!!!
Addis Abeba is becoming glorious by the day, sorry for your "mogadishu" that has become a restroom of the MOORYAN - The classiest former president of your country Gasim has over and again stated that Ethiopia was the obstacle to the stabilization in his country and he appealed to varied organisation to persuade Ethiopia to stay out of his country¡¯s internal affair. And do you think he just said that remark out of the blue? Of course no. Ethiopia is and still will be the stumbling block of the peace in Somalia and its influenced with varied warlord is noticeable for people who are willing to see reality with objective and non-bravado eyes.
- [img src="http://hem.passagen.se/laascaanood/1352374[1].jpg"]<<<TYPICAL SOMALIS
all U do is chew on khat and run their mounths all day- every country that wishes can be master of somalia even macau and the mighty pacific nation of palau
- "sob sob waah waah we dont have a government. waah waah sob sob" is your excuse for somalia being the poorest country in the world. the question u should ask is why doesnt somalia have a government in the first place? because its the poorest country in the world, it cannot afford to have a government, just wandering nomadic warlords fighting the next sanddoon and the goats
- In Somalia you have to bribe some one in order to survive every single day. That is the harsh reality of Somalia and no amount of words can cover that facts.
- Ask every Somali warlord who is not in the line of the current ¡°government¡± of Somalia; they know the current government of your country is a bitch of Ethiopia.
- ya somalis is leaping ahead in a furious face, looking to be the world's second poorest country after siera leone in just 5 years. then its all uphill, baby! by 2020, somalia will have a government, by 2050 every somali will get a whole meal a day, and by 2100 will have basic civic skills such as not killing your neighbors, not running like wild donkeys when american arrive to grab the militia members and so on
- it is not in the best interest of Ethiopia to see a stabilized and functioning country and as a result they are going to create havoc in the country by proxy. And they have a lot of puppets who are willing to do the dirty work for them including the current president.
In my opinion Somalia¡¯s darkest age is in front of her -
<<<<UR TYPICAL WARLORDS LOOK LIKE THIS. A BUNCH OF TEENAGERS WWITH NO EDUCATION AND COMMON SENCE
I can't even begin to understand why people compare Ethiopia to Somalia. Maybe all the lies somalis tell had something to do with it.
I CAN GO ON FOREVER
WE ETHIOPIANS AT LEAST DO SOME WORK THAT IS Y WE HAVE A HISTORY AND ARE MAKING A HISTORY.
1)Noah Samara (Xm SATTELITE FOUNDER)1.5 BILLION. Expected to grow to 5 billion in the next 2 years. Building a huge company in ethiopia.
www.planet4589.org/space/jsr/csg/csg1.html
www3.esu.edu/%5Cnoahsamaraspeech.asp
www.worldspace.ae/english/corporate.asp
www.worldspace.com/press/pressimages.html
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/04/AR2005080401969.html?sub=AR
2)T. Dosho Shifferaw
(FOUND BOWFLEX)800 million. Excpected to grow fast this year. (FAT AMERICANS lol)
www.dosho.com/About_DDI/dosho_bio.html
3) DAMN IT I FORGOT HIS NAME BUT HE HELPED INVENT GPS (GLOBAL POSTIONING SYSTEM)
4) Sheik Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi.
Sheik Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi. Why is his name sound Muslim. Well he got all his welath in Saudi Arabia and as u might have already known. You have to change your name and relegion to live in saudi arabia. 6 Billion dollars. Excpected to grow to around 10 Billion thanks to the high price of oil. He currently hires over 160,000 Ethiopians. he is also planing to build the Tallest Building in the whole african continent and some disalination plants.
rds.yahoo.com/S=96062883/K=Al-Amoudi/v=2/SID=e/TID=I016_80/l=IVI/SIG=12uh260ls/EXP=1108862781/*-http://www.ethioguide.com/aa-ethioguide/ethioguide/postcard/al-amoudi1.jpg
www.addistribune.com/Archives/2002/02/15-02-02/Midroc.htm
www.geeskaafrika.com/person_31mar05.htm
www.pixagogo.com/6999914471
www.pixagogo.com/8993914934
6) Nebi Alemu
Nebi Alemu (tadias Ethiopian-American Magazine) 22 million dollars growing fast
tadias.com/
7) Tesfu Sintayhu
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/04/AR2005050400991.html
Tesfu Sintayhu 4 million . growing fast. started 6 month ago IN THER 20'S
Mining A Rainbow Of Yellow Pages
By S. Mitra Kalita
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 23, 2005; Page LZ05
Flipping through entrepreneur Tesfu Sintayhu's Yellow Pages yields some expected results: dentists who will whiten teeth, contractors who install granite countertops and lawyers promising divorces in three weeks or less.
But Sintayhu's pages also contain the name of the capital of Swaziland, the country code for calling Kenya, deejays who can remix Ethiopian music and answers to questions on the U.S. citizenship exam.
Last year, Sintayhu and three friends published what they believe is the first African Yellow Pages in the United States. Intended to help African immigrants, from the newly arrived to the firmly established, the 456-page publication offers bus schedules, information on countries and their embassies, travel resources, listings of schools, churches, mosques and hospitals, and a business directory that runs from African stores to video services.
Now, from their office in Falls Church, the team behind the African Yellow Pages is preparing to publish a second edition this summer. They promise that it will be bigger, better and, in some ways, less African.
"The best gynecologist may not be an African," said Ahadu Woubshet, a managing partner. "We're targeting the market for any business owner. . . . from multinationals to small mom-and-pop shops."
Woubshet said that as long as a company wants to do business with Africa or its emigres in the U.S., he can talk them into buying advertising space in the book. And by that logic, Woubshet suggests he should be talking to most businesses in Northern Virginia, which has been redefined and transformed by immigration.
On doorsteps, in supermarkets and at trade fairs, ethnic business directories are piling up one heavy book after another. Vega Hispanic Yellow Pages, which was distributed in the Washington area for decades, was sold last year for $4 million to Hispanic Yellow Pages Network LLC, a growing Tampa, Fla., chain trying to acquire Latino directories nationwide. Business directories targeting Korean, Arab, Indian and Chinese immigrants also serve the region.
Managing partner Mimi Alemayehou said the competing books were a source of inspiration as she worked on the African version.
"We looked at them," said Alemayehou, who also works as an international consultant for organizations doing development work in Africa. "Why reinvent the wheel when we can just learn from them? There's definitely a need for Yellow Pages dedicated to specific immigrant communities. A family arrives in America and they want to know where to get their spices, where to take an English as a Second Language class."
With full-page ads costing about $3,000 and DaimlerChrysler Corp. serving as their lone corporate sponsor, the partners estimate the first book generated $250,000 in revenue.
"When you get into smaller and smaller niches, the prospect gets more daunting," said Charles Laughlin, an analyst with the Princeton, N.J.-based Kelsey Group, which tracks the phone book and directory industry. "Small businesses tend to think, 'If I am going to spend a dollar, I want to get 5, 10, 20 in return. If they can demonstrate that members of the community favor the businesses, they may have a reasonable proposition."
Beyond the book, Sintayhu and his partners have lofty goals. They want the Yellow Pages to promote African unity and help Americans get beyond images of Africa as impoverished, war-torn and famine-ridden. They don't ignore the problems -- statistics on AIDS in Africa fill the book, for example -- but the entrepreneurs also cite a surge in development on the continent, especially in Ethiopia (where all four partners were born), the boom in the Nigerian Stock Exchange, tourism in Mozambique and the deep pockets of African immigrants. In the 2000 Census, the African emigre population in the U.S. was shown to earn a median income of $42,000 and number around 881,000 -- although the Yellow Pages publishers assert that the number is closer to 1.8 million.
This area has more African immigrants than any other region in the U.S., with many of them lured by jobs at the World Bank or other development agencies. But the publishers of the Yellow Pages say the mainstream knows little about their community.
"Half the population doesn't know we have cars and buildings in Africa," said Ben Mitiku, vice president and co-founder of the African Yellow Pages.
About 50,000 copies of the first directory were printed. In early April, they handed some out at an African bridal show. Alemayehou recently brought a suitcase of books with her to London, where she attended a conference on the African diaspora.
Like the entrepreneurs who fill the pages of their book, they are trying to think of new markets, trying to think beyond their yellow book, trying to think big. There's been interest in a directory for New York's African community. Perhaps other marketing opportunities can be mined if a database of African businesses is created, they said. "This is going to be a very, very big business," said Sintayhu, who quit his job as a Network Programmer to work on the Yellow Pages and other products full time. "I see the potential."
8 )Mr. Gezahgen Kebede
Mr. Gezahgen Kebede and Garad . helped america companies. invest 7 billion in ethiopia. assets = 400 million. growing with economy.
Ethiopians Living In U.S Seek U.S. Investment
With 65 million people, Ethiopia is the third-most populous nation in Africa after Nigeria and Egypt. Its bustling capital city, Addis Ababa, is home to the Organization of African Unity.
But years of Marxist dictatorship and a devastating war with neighboring Eritrea have taken their toll on the country, and even though Ethiopia now has a democratic government and is at relative peace with its neighbors, and it's economy is growing rapidly..
"Trade with the U.S. isn¡¯t much, but compared to trade during the Marxist regime, we can say that it has increased dramatically," said Mohammed Yahya Garad, trade and investment counselor at the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington, D.C. "During the 1980s, there were less than 20 U.S. companies operating in Ethiopia. Today, there are over 500."
Under leftist leader Mengistu Haile Mariam, who had overthrown Emperor Haile Selassie and abolished the monarchy in 1975, Ethiopia bolstered its ties with the Soviet bloc and let its relations with the United States deteriorate. Famine ravaged the country in the mid-1980s, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 1 million people. After the fall of the Mengistu regime in 1991, a transitional government was set up, leading to Ethiopia¡¯s first multiparty general elections in 1995.
The few U.S. companies that were allowed to stay during the Mengistu years¡ªCoca-Cola, Mobil Oil and PepsiCo¡ªare today among the largest foreign investors in Ethiopia. Between 1992 and 1999, direct foreign investment came to around $1.2 billion.
But that¡¯s not enough for Garad, who said foreign investment is absolutely critical to Ethiopia¡¯s future.
"The Ethiopian government has a policy that is conducive to investment. It¡¯s one of the least corrupt countries in Africa," he told The Washington Diplomat. "There¡¯s not much we can do to alleviate our image. But we can prove to investors that as far as potential, Ethiopia has a wealth that would stagger anybody. It¡¯s very difficult to convince people of that when they see we¡¯re not self-sufficient in food. Farmers depend on rain. But at least six of our 12 rivers have the potential to be a cotton belt. If we could develop our hydroelectric potential, Ethiopia¡¯s cotton exports would surpass anything we make from coffee."
Garad said rebuilding the country¡¯s crumbling infrastructure is the numberone priority of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who came to Washington in September to dedicate the country¡¯s beautiful new $6.5 million embassy on International Drive.
"During a business forum we organized for the prime minister, the prime minister told businessmen that rail transportation is very urgently needed, and he invited private investors to look into that opportunity, as well as hydroelectricity," said Garad, who like most members of his country¡¯s professional elite speaks fluent English in addition to his native Amharic.Another opportunity for investment is the telecommunications sector. State-owned Ethiopia Telecommunications Corp. has only 435,000 (2003) phone lines in service. Mobile service is 97,800 (2003). ETC, which plans to add 1,000,000 phone lines over the next year, will itself be sold to the private sector, with PricewaterhouseCoopers advising the government on how to carry out the proposed privatization.
"The outlook is certainly more positive now than it was before," said Tshanda Kalombo, a Washington-based U.S. Commerce Department official who recently returned from a six-week assignment in Ethiopia. "The country is getting a lot of interest from the investment community. Some of that stopped when the conflict began. Before that, Ethiopia was seen as one of the most promising countries in Africa, then all of a sudden they went to war with Eritrea¡ªsort of a nonsensical conflict¡ªthen they got lumped together with the basket cases of Africa."
On June 18, Ethiopia and Eritrea signed a cessation of hostilities agreement, which is less formal than a cease-fire. "Both countries are weary of war," said Kalombo. "Both sides have been cooperating, but there¡¯s clearly a lot of distrust."
According to Kalombo¡¯s report, the positive changes that result from the end of the Ethio-Eritrean conflict should fuel U.S. commercial interest in the country. "Promising markets for U.S. exporters include aircraft and parts, vehicles and spare parts, construction equipment, agricultural equipment and supplies, telecommunications, medical products and chemicals," she said.
Much of the investment will likely come from the estimated 250,000 to 300,000 Ethiopians living in the United States. By far, the biggest community is Washington, D.C., home to around 70,000 Ethiopians. Smaller communities also flourish in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and New York.
"There¡¯s a very vibrant entrepreneurial group of Ethiopians residing in the U.S., and a number of them are professionals with their own businesses¡ªmore so than from any other African country and some Middle Eastern countries and others," said Garad. "In any major city today, you¡¯ll find two or three good Ethiopian restaurants. Here in Washington, there are over 200."
Garad, 51, graduated from the law school of Haile Selassie First University (today Addis Ababa University) and also earned a master¡¯s degree from Harvard Law School. Along with Texas businessman Gezahgen Kebede, he helped found the Ethio-American Trade and Investment Council, which today has 89 members.
Kebede, interviewed by phone from Houston, said Ethiopia faces a number of obstacles in attracting investment, chief of which is the lack of accurate information.
"Like with any other African country, a lot of American companies don¡¯t know about the potential that exists there. They see Africa as a big risk," he said. "It is risky, but any business anywhere has risks, and most of the U.S. companies really don¡¯t see beyond that. They see only what they read in newspapers and hear on TV."
Kebede said a 35-member trade delegation traveled to Ethiopia last year, producing encouraging results. One of the mission¡¯s participants, Houston-based Rift Valley Industries, will soon begin assembling laptop computers in Addis Ababa for the Ethiopian and sub-Saharan African market. The company¡¯s local partner, Garad PLC, already assembles TV sets. The venture plans to invest $7 million and employ around 100 people.
Despite the country¡¯s efforts to diversify, however, Ethiopia is still highly dependent on agricultural exports. Coffee alone accounts for 60 percent of the country¡¯s export earnings, though the sector was battered last year by Ethiopia¡¯s war with Eritrea as well as low world coffee prices.
"We haven¡¯t done a very good job marketing our coffee," said Garad. "It¡¯s really the power of advertising that, for example, makes Colombian coffee famous. Roasters know that Ethiopian coffee is superior, but they can¡¯t sell it because there¡¯s no demand at the consumer level. We are handicapped because we¡¯ve not approached it systematically. We¡¯ve been too timid to spend money on advertising. We need to take a systematic approach to the marketing of Ethiopian coffee in the United States."
Garad and Kebede are currently organizing a reverse trade mission, in which 35 to 40 Ethiopian executives will soon visit Washington, Houston and Atlanta for meetings with potential U.S. business partners.
One factor that could spark new interest in Ethiopia is the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), passed and signed into law by President Clinton in May. Under one provision of the law, which took effect Oct. 1, Ethiopia and 31 other African countries will receive duty-free treatment of textile and apparel exports to the United States.
Another growth area is tourism. Ethiopia will soon sign an open-skies agreement with the United States, which will allow U.S. airlines to compete with Ethiopian Airlines in offering routes between the two countries. Ethiopia is also applying for loan insurance and guarantees under the Overseas Private Investment Corp., a move that will help attract U.S. investment.
For more information on Ethiopia, visit the Ethio-American Trade and Investment Council¡¯s Web site at
http://www.eatic.org./
if ethiopia was peacful it would go straight up.
9)solomon bekele
Chances are good today that the quality of your taxi ride in Atlanta will be influenced by a man who was born and raised in Ethiopia and keeps his principal home in Maryland.
Solomon Bekele, 55, is Atlanta's taxi king - a multimillionaire cab company owner whose influence in the publicly regulated industry far exceeds any competitor.
www.addistribune.com/Archives/2002/01/18-01-02/Atlanta.htm
my felllow country man.
