Abyssinia Cement ownership moves to ZayRide founders

The founders of Ethiopia’s pioneer taxi service, ZayRide, have added Abyssinia Cement to their investment portfolio for ETB600m (US$11.2m), according to Capital Ethiopia.

Abyssinia Cement operates a 0.85Mta integrated cement plant at Chanco, 45km north of the capital Addis Ababa in the Oromia region.

Habtamu Tadesse, CEO of ZayRide, said that the cement industry was one of the country’s increasingly lucrative businesses and said in terms of running costs, he expects to pay out ETB150m. “To start the production phase may take up to two months. So far we are on the maintenance stage and we are drawing linkages with the market and agents,” he added.