Ethiopian Airlines announced partnerships with major companies of the United States including expanding business relation with Boeing, General Electric, among others.
The 100% Ethiopian government aviation group is set to sell up to 45% of its stake for foreign investors, according to the decision made by the Ethiopian government, which is currently is short of hard currency.
The long standing relationship between Ethiopian Airlines and United States companies may signal that the aviation group is likely to sell its share for the United States companies.
Yesterday’s agreement includes procurement of twelve General Electric engines valued at $444 million, as well as a separate $473.5 million 10-year maintenance contract. Africa’s biggest aviation group has also signed two contracts with Honeywell – a $10.2 million deal for the Bole Airport expansion and a $7.2 million Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) service contract.
Ethiopian Airlines has inked the deals with the American business representatives who are on official business trip in Addis Ababa. Ethiopian Airlines, which announced the deal with General Electric (GE) and Honeywell and training grant from the U.S. Trade Development Agency (USTDA).
The partnership between United States companies and Ethiopia includes building of new airports to support the rapid growth of aviation sector to increase foreign exchange, business trips and expand the tourism sector at large. This would open other business opportunities and lure more investors to Ethiopia, benefiting from the Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) from the power house.
Their business union is set to create more jobs for the Ethiopian citizens as they build a stronger economy. Thousands of jobs will be up for bid in the aggressively growing market of Ethiopia to cater for the disturbing issue of unemployment in the country. Other business collaborations will be ventured into as believed by the delegates to spur the economic growth of the country.
USTDA is partnering with the Sabre Corporation to provide an Airline Solutions Training Program Technical Assistance grant for Ethiopian, which could leverage up to $21.2 million in financing to support the procurement of airline information technology solutions, consulting services, and industry best practices.
These deals will add to the already existing business deals in Ethiopia amounting to billions of dollars splashed by U.S. More investment is yet to be made from U.S to Ethiopia under this category.
Boeing has been working closely with the Ethiopia, providing a fleet of aircraft to them. Ethiopian seeks to enlarge its territories around the globe and would need to add to its fleet for effective operations in new routes.
Currently 70% of Ethiopian fleet has been supplied by the American Boeing company, recording a great business union between the two.