Al Amoudi gets $200 million loan for cement factory

EDITOR’S NOTE: Why doesn’t the drunkard sheik invest his own money, instead of borrowing from the World Bank in the name of Ethiopia? The answer is simple. He is in Ethiopia to plunder the country with his Woyanne buddies and leave when their time is up, not to invest in long-term economic development.

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Billionaire businessman Al Amoudi signed a $200 million loan agreement with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) on Wednesday to build a new cement plant to ease cement shortages in Ethiopia, officials said. IFC is the private sector arm of the World Bank.

The new factory, worth $351 million will also be financed by Midroc, a privately owned company with interests across the Horn of Africa country which will provide the remaining $151 million needed to build the new plant.

“This plant with a capacity to produce up to 2.5 million tonnes a year, will address the acute shortages of cement in Ethiopia,” Midroc Chairman Sheik Mohammed Hussein Al-Amoudi said during the signing ceremony.

The plant will be built in Derba, some 70 kms (43 miles) north of Addis Ababa.

“As a result of the unprecedented boom in the construction business in Ethiopia, a mix of Ethiopian and foreign investors are building 24 cement factories in different parts of the country”, Hailu Abebe a public relations officer at the trade ministry told Reuters.

By 2009, production from some of the 24 cement factories is expected to surpass Ethiopia’s annual demand of between five to six million tonnes, Hailu added.