Ezega.com Distributing High Quality Prepaid Calling Cards to Its Customers

Ezega.com, the premier web portal for Ethiopian News, Jobs, Real Estate, Classifieds, Entertainment and Social Networking, has begun distributing high quality electronic Ethiopian calling cards to its customers. Our phone cards can be used to call anywhere internationally, including all cities in Ethiopia and Africa. They are cheap, convenient and reliable, cards that will allow our customers to make affordable calls from the convenience of their homes easily. Our customers can open an account with us and buy cards instantly. Calling card PINs are emailed to the customer immediately after purchase. Cards can be refilled just as easily by adding money into the account.

 

To meet the various needs of our customers, our Ethiopian phone cards are priced at $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100. Unlike other calling card companies, we do not charge processing fee for purchases less $20. All of our cards, from $5 to $100, are sold at face value without any extra processing charges. Our cards deliver minutes as stated with each card and do not come with many hidden charges and rip-offs so common in the industry. Rates start from as low as 19.6 cents per minute to Ethiopia, allowing you about 25 minutes of uninterrupted call to Addis Ababa. Our cards come with rounding times of either 1 minute or 3 minutes, depending on your needs. All cards have toll-free access numbers that are good for calls from the USA and Canada. To purchase Ezega prepaid calling cards to Ethiopia, please visit us at http://www.Ezega.com/Communities/index.aspx .

 

Ezega.com also sells other Ethiopia-related merchandise to its customers. We sell apparel products such as T-shirts with the Ethiopia flag, Ethiopian Gift items, Ethiopian Books, Ethiopian Music, Ethiopian videos and Ethiopian jewelry. Ezega.com supplies these products in collaboration with Amazon.com, the world’s largest online retailer. You can order your items with confidence and peace of mind to receive your products at home within a few days. Ezega Ethiopian Shopping can be found here: http://www.Ezega.com/E-Commerce/Products/AmazonProducts.aspx.

 

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Ethiopia’s Hottest Jobs

Due to robust economic growth in Ethiopia during the last few years, workers in many sectors have been getting greater employment opportunities. Ezega.com has been monitoring vacancy ads in its database and found that some sectors did much better than others. Sectors that registered the most new jobs include Information Technology and Engineering.

For the full article, please visit Ezega.com, the premier site for News about Ethiopia, Real Estate in Ethiopia, Ethiopian Classifieds, and Ethiopian Social Networking.

Full article: Ethiopia’s Hottest Jobs

Buying Real Estate in Ethiopia

As in many countries of the world, the Ethiopian real estate has been booming for much of this decade. In many areas, prices doubled and even tripled in a span of a few years. The highest appreciation in home prices occurred in the five-year period between 2003 and 2008.

 

Home prices vary widely from region to region. Even within the same city, there can be wide variation in home prices. Homes in upscale areas such as Bole in the capital are worth much more than homes found in outlaying areas. In Bole, a Four Bedroom, Two Bath home over 500 square meter plot of land can fetch 3 million ETB (or US$ 300,000).

 

The real estate brokerage business in Ethiopia is not as well developed as in other countries. Buyers and sellers rely on agents locally called “Delalas” for buying and selling homes. These are traditional agents with no formal education in real estate but who basically mediate between buyers and sellers. A great deal of negotiation is involved in buying homes. Asking prices can be as high as 50% more than the final sale prices.

 

Delalas play critical role in convincing both sellers and buyers to come to terms. Normally, Delalas do not help you in completing the legal paperwork needed to complete the transaction. This must be done by the buyer and seller themselves and may take several months. It is very important that buyers check the authenticity of seller documents. Otherwise, they can waste crucial time and/or money in such endeavor. People who are less skilled with the Ethiopian bureaucracy may seek the help of legal assistants locally called “Guday Asfetsami”.

 

Home mortgages are almost none existent in Ethiopia. Most real estate transactions are conducted on cash basis. This has limited the liquidity of homes but it may also have prevented the kind of real estate bubbles we witnessed elsewhere. Mortgage financing may be obtained for some homes, primarily for new homes built by developers. These companies negotiate financing terms with local banks in advance for all of their clients, current and future one. They basically arrange group deals for those who can put the required down payment. Down payments vary from 20 to 40%. Although most mortgages are for 10-20 years in duration, some companies arrange mortgages for as long as 30 years. Typically, interest rates are variable and depend on the prevailing interest rate fixed by the central bank.

 

It is estimated that there are about sixty local and six foreign real estate development operators in the country (with a registered investment capital of close to 1.6 billion Birr, or US$160 million). A major problem with homes built by these companies is the time it takes for completion. In the past, some of these homes were completed many years past their due dates. And some never made it to completion.

 

The real estate boom has slowed considerably over the past year or so. And the ones most affected by the slowdown are the real estate developers. The Ethiopian diaspora has been the main client of these companies, and most of these clients have been from the United States which is in severe economic downturn currently.

 

“Over 70% of our clients are from the diaspora, 50% of whom are living in the United States,” said Samuel Taffese, proprietor and managing director of Sunshine Real Estate Plc, which last year handed over 166 G+1 houses and 26 apartments to customers. “The real estate market has failed to secure new customers from the diaspora because of the financial crises.” Likewise, Ropack International Housing Project, a South Africa-based company engaged in real estate development in Ethiopia, is also unable to collect payments for some 360 residential houses it built over the last few years.

 

Who can buy homes in Ethiopia? Anyone can by homes in Ethiopia as long as he/she is an Ethiopian citizen, foreign national of Ethiopian origin, or has Ethiopian parents. To see the latest listing of residential and commercial properties for sale or rent, please visit Ezega’s Ethiopian Real Estate Site. This site is the largest real estate portal in Ethiopia and lists hundreds of homes for sale and/or rent at any given time. Anyone can register and post properties for sale or rent for free.

 

For more news and information about Ethiopia, please visit Ezega.com, the premier site for Ethiopia News, Ethiopia Employment, Ethiopia Homes, Ethiopia Classifieds, Ethiopia Entertainment, and Ethiopia Videos.

Ethiopia’s Real GDP growth

African countries have scored remarkable economic growth this decade. During this time, the growth for the continent as a whole has been more than 5%. This has led people to speculate that, finally, some fundamental change is taking place in Africa. “For the first time in almost 30 years, we’ve seen a large number of African countries that have begun to show sustained economic growth at rates that are similar to those in the rest of the developing world and actually today exceed the rate of growth in most of the advanced economies,” writes John Page, World Bank’s chief economist for Africa.

Ethiopia has also had its share of economic growth over this decade, particularly during the latter half, 2003-2008. The solid line in the chart below shows the Real GDP growth for Ethiopia (i.e., GDP growth adjusted for price changes). For the five year period between 2003 and 2008, the Ethiopian economy grew between 5 and 12%.

Also shown in the chart below is the GDP Per Capita for Ethiopia, as well as the average GDP Per Capita for East Africa and Africa as a whole. Adjusted for inflation, Ethiopia’s GDP Per Capita grew from US$120 in 2000/2001 to US$154 in 2008/2009. This is based on prices that prevailed in year 2000. Ethiopia’s GDP Per Capita for 2008 (in 2008 US$) is estimated to be about US$850 (although data varies depending on the source). This means much of the increase in Per Capita GDP has been due to inflation.

Finally, the data shows Ethiopia’s Per Capita GDP is still much lower than both the Per Capita GDP averages for East Africa and Africa as a whole – less than 50% the average for East Africa and less than 20% the average for Africa.

This article is the second of a three-part series on the Ethiopian economy. In the third and last article, we will see the external debt position of the country.

For more information on this and related articles about Ethiopia, please visit Ezega.com, the premier site for Ethiopian News, Ethiopia Jobs, Ethiopia Real Estate, Ethiopian Classifieds, Ethiopian Community and Ethiopian Videos.

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