|
The state owned Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE)
has disclosed late last week an unprecedented gross
profit of 1.9 billion Br, from its operation for
2007/08 budget year. This profit represents a 60pc
increase when compared with the same period last
year, according to a press release issued on Friday,
July 11, 2008.
CBE’s management has
attributed what it described as, “the most
encouraging results” to the Business Process
Reengineering it has been implementing.
The bank is reported to have injected over 17
billion Br into the economy during the same period,
an amount 48pc more than it had planned.
CBE’s share of
non-performing loans (NPL) declined drastically to
5.2pc, an impressive amount which is half of the
international best practice.
Industry observers are, however, sceptical of this
performance. They argue that over 50pc the loans CBE
has advanced are to mega state enterprises, such as
EEPCo, ETC and the Ethiopian Petroleum Enterprise (EPE).
They criticize the management for swelling the
amount of loans it has advanced, thus reducing the
ratio of NPL against total loans, instead of a
result of loan recovery performance.
CBE management was not available to respond to these
comments.
|
Industry observers are far from impressed