Need for inclusive development financing by the Development Bank of Ethiopia capitalethiopia.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from capitalethiopia.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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By Kamil A. Oumer
Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE) is the only development bank for the 100 million and plus people in Ethiopia. For the last one century, the bank has been operating development financing through different monikers. After it was re-established as the Development Bank of Ethiopia in 2003, it has been empowered to provide development finance at the lowest possible rate while ensuring its sustainability. Hence, by mobilizing fund from domestic and foreign sources, it has been providing loans, lease financing, export guarantee, etc worth of billions of Ethiopian birr. The bank particularly focuses on government priority areas like commercial agriculture, strengthening small and medium enterprises (SME), agro-processing and manufacturing. The bank, however, has no interest free financial services to date. The author of this opinion piece argues that the DBE should open interest-free finance (IFF) window services for inclusive developmen