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Ethiopian Shipping Lines (ESL)

by Jarig Bakker, 11 December 2005

See also:

Ethiopian Shipping Lines, Addis Ababa - green flag, 8-spoked brown steering wheel, yellow lion rampant. Image after Brown's Flags and Funnels of Shipping Companies of the World, compiled by J.L. Loughran, Glasgow, 1995 [lgr95].
Jarig Bakker, 11 December 2005

More on this company here (founded in 1964 and, at least at the start, enjoying Dutch support) http://www.winne.com/ethiopia/to08.html There is an interesting flag variant - with lettering:

Simpler flags (emblem completely in white on a green background) are found on the internet but these do not seem authentic.
The lion however consistently faces the fly, which is unusual - at least in Western (or Northern) eyes.
Jan Mertens, 12 December 2005

Former Ethiopian ports were Assab and Massawi and ESL also used Djibouti and Mombasa (Kenya). The company was privatized in 1998. The article I linked to was originally published in Forbes, 26 July 1999. Because of the conflict with Eritrea, operations were shifted to Djibouti then while the company seat (and apparently also the register!) is Addis Abeba.
It seems that goods transported to Ethiopia by sea must be carried by ESL. As Djibouti is felt to be profiting too much from the situation, Berbera in breakaway Somaliland is a likely alternative.
The fleet consists of nine ships now and two more will be built in China 2006-2007.
Jan Mertens, 13 December 2005

The line above reads "የሊትዮጵያ ንማድ መርኩበ" (Yaliteyopheyaa Nemaade Marekuba), which is Ethiopian for the bottom line, "Ethiopian Shipping Lines". António Martins-Tuválkin, 13 December 2005