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Meals are available in all hotels. There are also hotels and guest houses in smaller towns whose prices are generally slightly lower than for those in the main centers.

When making reservations, check for service charges and sales taxes. Hotel bills must be paid in hard currency known as Nakfa. Credit cards are accepted in major hotels, airlines and majortravel agencies.

Foreign currencies can be exchanged at the Commercial Bank of Eritrea in Asmara which provides the best exchange rate, private exchange offices and major hotels. Source: (PR-inside)

Major Banks and hotels in Asmara and Massawa accept traveller’s cheques, US Dollar traveller’s cheques being the most recommended. Don’t hesitate to go out and taste the food and drink in the restaurants. Italian cuisine dominates in larger cities while Massawa is renowned for its excellent seafood, especially prawns and lobster.

National specialities include kitcha (thin bread from wheat), injera (a spongy pancake), tsebhi and alicha birsen while national drinks include bun (coffee), shahi (plain tea), swa (beer from local grain) and fruit juices. Get yourself gold and silver jewelery, woodcarvings, leather items, spears, drums, carpets and wicker goods. A certain amount of bargaining is expected in market places but prices in shops are usually fixed.

Finding cheap flights to Eritrea is not that easy, you need to do researching as well as planning ahead of time. Airfares are usually the most expensive part of a vacation trip, next to it would be hotel accommodations, this is why most of those who plan to visit the Eritrea would surely want to go after those cheap flights to Eritrea. Nevertheless, once you arrive in the country, most of the things you will find there have adequately cheap prices, like food, transportation, souvenir items, clothing stuffs, and other accessories you may want to buy, way much cheaper compared to buying the same things from other countries.

There are many specially trained professional Travel Agents will always help you to book a convenient flight to the Eritrea and Travelhouseuk.co.uk is one of them so just call them to book flights which will best suit your budget and travel needs.

Asmara, 24 November 2009 – Invited guests who participated in the international symposium held here in the capital in connection with the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the NCEW conducted a visit to various institutions in Asmara and Massawa.

The participants visited the Zaer textile and the Asmara beer factories, during which they received briefings on the mode of operation and production of the two factories.

Also in the course of a visit to Massawa, they expressed admiration to the existing rich natural resources and spectacular landscape. They also visited the Free Economic Zone being set up in the port city and subsequently headed to Dessie Island where they observed the unpolluted and virgin waters of the Eritrean Red Sea territorial waters.

The participants said that they are highly impressed with Eritrea’s development achievements on the basis of self-reliance principle within the short period since independence. Noting that the implementation of major development programs by the people and Government of Eritrea are quite exemplary to other countries, they stated that Eritrea would undoubtedly emerge victorious on the basis of self-reliance. Source: (www.shabait.com)

African Journal correspondent, Linda Muriuki, is reporting on the economy of Eritrea. She is talking about the geological resources of Eritrea and the role they could play in developing Eritrea’s economy.

Further, she is mentioning that analysts are predicting a mining boom in the country.

The video shows that this view is shared by Eritrean authorities, who want to develop the sector in a sustainable manner.

The government wants to prevent the so called “Resources Curse”, which is a terminology for incidents where minerals and oil have fueled violence and corruption in Africa.

The report is also highlighting that many of the Eritrean Diaspora are avoiding Eritrea, because of reports about human right abuses within the country. Nevertheless, the Diaspora is supporting Eritrea in monetary terms and is contributing to rebuild the infrastructure.

Mrs Muriuki makes the remark, “Although Eritrea has not always let in the outside world, it is now starting to open up “.

A comment, which gives hope that things are moving into the right direction in Eritrea. The first step towards opening up Eritrea to the outside world can be seen in the coming Free Trade Zone, which is going to abolish many trade barriers as an incentive for foreign companies.

Eritrea is hoping to become a strong economy in the region and for future generations this might change the perception of Eritrea in the world. Watch the Video by Reuters (“Eritrea Opens Up”).

There is an area view of Eritrea in google earth taken via satellite, which shows a Lufthansa logo drawn into the sand (satellite picture below). The logo was placed in a field, which at that time belonged to the Seawater Farms Eritrea project near Massawa. Lufthansa was participating in the funding of  Seawater farms, before the project was dropped by the stake holders. The logo has become a guerilla marketing stunt for Lufthansa in the web world and we can be assured that Lufthansa had its return on capital employed.

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According to Araia dozens of companies have already registered, because Eritrea’s ports are located along the busiest shipping routes of the world. Further, he outlined that approximately 20.000 ships loaded with 700 million tonnes of cargo, which is around 9% of the total global freight market, would pass each year the coast of Eritrea.

The country is said to have invested millions of $US for the infrastructure of the harbour and airport in Massawa. There are already around 12 companies from countries such as China, Italy, Israel, India, Djibouti, Sudan and Dubai, which have registered under the scheme.

Araia points out that the competitive advantage of Massawa or Assab lies in the low labour costs compared to ports such as Dubai, Djibouti or Aden. Although, Eritrea is aware of the fierce competition from neighbouring countries, it believes it can tap into the niche market of small scale freight operations. Because, small companies would shift away from expensive harbours in the region in favour of the less expensive Eritrean ports. Thus, the initial strategy would be to focus on small cargo business first.

Eritrea’s second and strategically better located port Assab, due to it’s closer location to the Indian Ocean, will follow Massawa into the free trade zone in 2010. Eritrea hopes with this measures to stimulate economical activities in the country as well as to lay the foundation for a good soil of future trade with the world.

Along Eritrea’s coastline, in the desert strip between Massawa and Assab, most people live from fishing. This is because the region is not suitable for green agriculture as it belongs to the dry and hot Danakil desert. Since it is difficult to obtain fuel to power boats, local fishermen face problems in going out far to the Red Sea to find rich fishing grounds. Because the heat of the water surface close to the coast reaches high temperatures, fish swarms leave the coastal waters. In addition to this, lack of fuel leads to a shortage of ice, because refrigerators depend on fuel powered electricity from power plants.

Ice is required as there is a need to keep the fish fresh while transporting, storing and trading the catch around markets in the region. Fishermen rather sell the fish freshly caught while on sea to Yemen. This shows that the limitation of resources keeps the local fishing industry below its potential.

However, there is a “wind of change” coming in the name of the Wind Energy Application Pilot Project financed by the UNDP and the Global Environment Facility. Under the project it is planned to provide electricity for seven villages in the area in 2009.

The prospects that the venture will be successful are promising. According to the local officials and the responsible implementation team of Turkish engineers, wind speeds of over seven knots are required to produce sufficient electricity. Along the Red Sea cost of Eritrea, winds can reach up to 10 knots or more. The planned wind park installations in Assab and the region will reduce fuel dependency and reduce expenditure of fuel imports. Read more: IRIN.

Company number one, Lanka Hydraulic Institute (LHI), which prepared a study on a project to improve the oil and gas product import / export facilities at the port of Massawa, has been awarded to restruct Srilankan coastal areas, which were hit by the 2004 Tsunami. The company made a proposal to the Stake Holders, advising on how to replace the old jetty (jetty = petroleum pipe line, photo on the left by Brian Samuel Bar) with a newly build jetty at the power plant at Hirgigo Bay – Massawa harbour. In 2008 the Government of Eritrea invited in an international tender, foreign companies

to apply for a contract to build the facilities, financed by (IDA) International Development Association, the European Union and the Government of Eritrea.  The bidding, which had to be laid out according to World Bank’s eligibility rules and procedures, required proposals from the applying companies. LHI informs about how it would approach the  Massawa project as well as other news on their Home Page.

The feasibility study, design as well as the management of the tender for the petroleum jetty has been executed by company number 2, the Maritim Consultancy Royal Haskoning (RH). The award and the contracts of the  tender were supposed to be finished at the end of 2008 and construction was supposed to start by early 2009 according to RH.

Landlocked Ethiopia this week admitted the nation’s high dependency to only Djibouti port has become a big concern to her as the volume of its fast growing import-export trade keeps booming with time.

In a in a nine-month performance report it presented to the House of Peoples’ Representatives the Ministry of Transport and Communication on Tuesday said that although Ethiopia uses other alternative ports of neighboring countries most of its import-export trade is carried out through the port of Djibouti which accounts over 90% of the total import-export trade.

The report disclosed that relying on one port has become a bottleneck to the development of import-export trade in the country. It added that Ethiopia is limited to the use of one port land shipping matters and the transit service are not compatible to the economic development and the demand for such services that arise as well.

Currently, Djibouti port, 910 kms east of Addis Ababa, serves as Ethiopia’s main sea gateway since the horn of Africa’s nation lost ports of Assab and Massawa following Eritrea’s independence.

Ethiopia’s annual cargo traffic at Djibouti port totals over 4.8 million tonnes. Ethiopia’s cargo accounts for 83 percent of the total cargo traffic at the port. Djibouti port has the capacity to handle ten millions tonnes of cargo and 500,000 containers per annum.

Ethiopia every year spends more than two billion birr for port service

In recent years the Ethiopian government led by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi doesn’t seem to withstand the high dependency on a single port and has begun efforts to identify alternative ports.

Ethiopian authorities have been assessing the port of Somaliland, Berbera, Port Sudan and the Mombassa port of Kenya as an alternative.

The Ethiopian government is also under repeated high pressure from Ethiopian businessmen who are seeking alternative, cheaper routes through which they can export and import goods

As Part of efforts to ease dependency on the port of Djibouti,Ethiopia is also forging better road links with its neighbors Sudan and Kenya

The port of Assab in the south of Eritrea was used almost exclusively by Ethiopia but since the 1998-2000 deadly border war, the port has gone idle.

Since Ethiopia went in war with Eritrea, the port of Djibouti became the only significant port for Ethiopia. Millions of dollars of goods shipping each year through the port to Ethiopia, and more than 30,000 barrels of oil a day are required just to meet Ethiopia’s fuel needs.

Source: Sudan Tribune

Luca’s grandfather was an Italian living for a while in Eritrea. When Luca was looking through the old belongings of his grandfather, he discovered a model of sunglasses from old times, which fascinated him. He had the idea to bring the elegance of Africa paired with the design of Italy into a newly merged model of  sunglasses. He went back to the original manufacturers to reproduce them and named  some designs after places in Eritrea, such as Asmara, Massawa and Keren. The collection of sunglasses and old pictures of his grandfather in Eritrea can be viewed on the brand’s homepage. The sunglasses are manufactured in Italy.

For the summer schedule 2009 Frankfurt Airport announced that Eritrean Airlines ceased flying to Frankfurt. So far Eritrean Aviation was dominated by Eritrean Airlines serving mainly Eritreans abroad visiting friends and relatives in their home country during summer holidays or Christmas.

However, a second airline named Nasair came recently into spotlight enriching the Eritrean Aviation sector. Nasair was founded in 2006 in Eritrea with a more regional network than Eritrean Airlines.

The airline is part of the Sharjah-based Nasair Group, operating scheduled services linking Asmara with around half a dozen destinations within Eritrea and in Kenya, the Sudan and United Arab Emirates. It also offers charter services. Sister company Nasair Cargo offers world wide cargo charters from its base in Massawa.

Most of the Nasair’s passenger traffic destined for Massawa comes from Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. For 2008 the share of Passengers originating from outside Eritrea and traveling to Massawa was split between those two countries. You can visit the airline at the  Nasairgroup homepage.

Source: IATA 2009