The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) registered yet another record gross profit of 2.8 billion Br in the 2009/10 budget year.

The financial result, which is yet to be audited, showed a slight increase in the gross profit of the previous year that stood at 2.7 billion Br, which in turn was significantly higher than the preceding year when the gross profit was 1.9 billion Br.

“The record gross profit of the CBE is attributed to the economic growth of the country and the improvement of the provision of services [by] the bank after the implementation of a business process reengineering (BPR),” according to an official at the CBE.

The state owned commercial bank recorded unprecedented growth across the board, registering an almost 30pc increase in its deposit mobilisation, a 13 billion Br increase from last year’s 43.5 billion Br. The previous increase in bank deposits that was a record at the time, showed an increase of five billion Birr from the preceding year.

The assets of the bank also shot up by 50pc to 75 billion Br from the previous year’s 50 billion Br. The CBE also managed to cut its nonperforming loans (NPL) to 1.7pc of total loans and advances from 3.9pc last year.

After the introduction of the lending cap by the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), the loan granted by the CBE was restricted within a limit of 14 billion Br.

The management of the CBE is planning to go to Haile Resort in Hawassa, seat of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples (SNNP) Regional State, on a three-day re

treat on Thursday, July 15, 2010, in order to evaluate the performance of the bank in the just ended budget year and to plan for next budget year.

Following the previous year’s record profit, the bank awarded its employees, totalling about 8,000, with a two-month salary bonus and a double level increase within the salary scale to all. The bank also awarded Henn Architekten, a German company, for the design of the construction of its headquarters, which is expected to commence by the end of 2011 on a 10,528sqm plot of land secured from Kirkos District, Addis Abeba. Banking