Ethiopian bank gets Indian management

Reports from Ethiopia say the State Bank of India will take over the management of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia later this year.

The president of the CBE, Ato Tilahun Abay, said a preliminary agreement had been signed with the Indian bank after it beat off 12 other international banks to win the management contract.

Mr Tilahun said the CBE would be managed for an initial period of three years for a fee of $2.5m.

He said the CBE, publicly-owned and Ethiopia's biggest bank, needed to modernise to cope with possible future competition from foreign financial institutions.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service