Message of the Board Chairperson

For the last 33 years, I have worked with small trade partners, lending financial institutions, banks, government offices, consultants, fellow investors, international trade partners, and other stakeholders and built up the skills that enabled me to lift my small business from a family retail trading to a big business group known as BKG.

BKG has created 22 companies and generated billions of revenue every year. The group is engaged in diversified business sectors. We are operating in the export of sesame, and continued to be the market leader in Ethiopia for the last ten years, In addition, we operate in the agriculture sector by securing five farm areas in five different regions. Our manufacturing sector has five plants. We are also engaged in the construction sector, the hotel industry, freight, and public transport, and real estate development.

Out of our business organizations PhiBela Industrial PLC is one of the biggest edible oil processing plants not only in Ethiopia but also in Africa. BK Metal Engineering Complex and BK Debre Birhan Car Assembly Plant are also the fruits of our hard work that contributed to the development of the manufacturing sector in the country. Phibela and BK metal engineering complex transformed us from trader to manufacturer. BKG is operating in 7 regions across Ethiopia with more than 5,000 professionals and employees who are working on a permanent and contractual basis. We have generated more than USD 605 Thousand in the last fifteen years. In the import business, our product items include CKD of heavy-duty trucks, luxury buses, mini-buses, and automobiles. These products are manufactured in our metal engineering plants located at Gelan subcity, Oromia Region, and in Debre Birhan City, Amhara region. Steel bars, tires, and agricultural chemicals are also our imported items.

In the coming five years we will be focusing on expanding the size of our commercial farms. The main agricultural products grown on our farms’ will be coffee, sesame seed, and different types of fruit for export. Our main objective of expanding farms is to enable us to generate foreign currency by exporting traceable products for our customers.

In addition, to realize the government's economic objective of import substitution and value-added products export strategy; we are installing a protein powder manufacturing and edible oil crushing plant in a compound where PhiBela Industrial PLC is situated. We have three mega projects on which our investment is focusing and these include a high-rise luxury Ethiopia hotel and apartment redevelopment project, the Piassa real estate and apartment building project, and a five-star rated Bahir Dar Hilton Hotel and Spa.

It is my pleasure to see that our employees are happier and more motivated than ever when they work for the realization of our dreams of becoming one of the leading business institutions in Africa. We believe that our employees are the most important assets of the BKG. Most of our customers I know get an enormous sense of satisfaction and trust from the products and services we deliver to them. Our companies will be committed to fulfilling their corporate social responsibilities as ever before.

The great leadership role of the Board of Directors of the BKG in alignment with the management team of our companies has a significant impact on the success of our mega projects and the realization of the five-year strategic plan.