The state-owned Commercial Bank of Ethiopia reported a profit of 17.9 billion birr, about $612 million, for the fiscal year that ended July 7, 2019, borkena and 2merkato reported.
The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia’s new headquarters tower under construction in Addis Ababa, photographed on January 5, 2020. (Varavour / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0) [file photo]
Bank president Bacha Gina announced the results at a staff performance review at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, borkena reported, citing the Ethiopian News Agency. He said profit was up 7 billion birr from the previous fiscal year.
“We have surpassed the planned target for the fiscal year as the profit registered is over 102 percent over the last fiscal year,” the news agency quoted him as saying. Bacha was appointed after Abiy Ahmed became prime minister in 2018, borkena noted.
Deposits grew by 89 billion birr against a planned 87 billion, reaching more than 541 billion birr, the bank said. 2merkato said deposits rose from 451.8 billion birr, about $15.45 billion, a year earlier to 541 billion birr, about $18.5 billion.
Bacha said the bank’s net worth stood at 712 billion birr, more than $25 billion, and that it had obtained over $6.3 billion in foreign currency from export trade and remittances from Ethiopians abroad.
The bank had 1,444 branches across the country, 157 of them opened during the 2018/19 fiscal year, according to the reports. 2merkato described it as the largest commercial bank in East Africa.