Ethiopia Grants First Financial License to Foreign Lease Company

(Bloomberg) -- Ethiopia’s central bank granted its first financial services license to a leasing company that plans to bring into the east African country equipment worth $600 million.

Ethio Lease, a unit of New York-based Africa Asset Finance Company Inc., said it will purchase equipment from agricultural machinery to medical equipment and drilling rigs, and receive payment in Ethiopian Birr.

The licensing is part of a plan Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced to open up large swathes of the economy to more foreign capital shortly after winning power in the former communist country last year. The financial services sector is among the most attractive with 18 commercial banks serving more than 100 million people.

“Indirectly, we ease pressure on forex because people can get their hands on equipment without having to queue for forex at the central bank through local banks,” Frans Van Shaik, chairman and chief executive officer of AAFC, said Thursday from the capital, Addis Ababa.

To contact the reporter on this story: Nizar Manek in Nairobi at nmanek2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Malingha at dmalingha@bloomberg.net, Gordon Bell

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