French and Kuwaiti groups to build two hotels in Ethiopia

ADDIS ABABA, Jan 15 (AFP) — French hotel group Accor, in partnership with Kuwait’s M.A. al-Kharafi group, have signed a 17-million-dollar contract with Addis Ababa authorities to build two hotels in the Ethiopian capoital, an Accor official said Saturday.

Accor Afrique development director Dominique Landreau said the deal to build a Novotel and a lower-range Ibis was the group’s first investment in Ethiopia.

He said Accor welcomed the association with Kharafi, which built the highly-praised new terminal at Addis Ababa airport in 2003 and knew the country.

Landreau said construction work, at the corner of the city’s central Meskel Square and the road leading to the airport, would begin “after the rainy season, around the beginning of November.”

A French diplomat hailed the announcement as “good news”, noting that few French firms were present in Ethiopia, apart from oil giant Total and the Castel brewing group.

Accor, formed in 1967, has nearly 4,000 hotels in 140 countries.