Ethiopian Airlines is to respond to the rapidly growing air cargo demand in the country, especially exports, by embarking on the construction of a major cargo terminal project at its Bole International Airport hub and is to begin negotiations for new large all-cargo aircraft. The airline already has the largest cargo fleet in Africa consisting of two Boeing 757-200Fs, two MD-11s and two B747Fs and is now setting its sights on an undisclosed number of Boeing 777 freighters. Ethiopia CEO, Tewolde Gebremariam,told World Air news that as the country's import/export business was growing and in order to meet this demand, the airline was to build a new cargo terminal and order new cargo aircraft. The airline had earlier called for tenders for a new cargo terminal, but scrubbed the ideal when the prices tendered proved to be far higher than originally anticipated. Now the project is to be re-opened. Management has called for a revised design and will soon call for tenders. "We are redesigning the cold storage perishable cargo warehouse so that it includes the whole warehouse expansion (both the dry cargo warehouse and perishable cargo warehouse) expansion," Tewolde said."We are seriously considering acquiring Boeing 777 Freighter aircraft.Today; this is the most efficient freighter aircraft in the world especially in today's high fuel price environment. This is in line with our Vision 2025 freighter fleet plan," Tewolde said."We will soon start negotiation with Boeing. "We are also studying market diversification for the flower export destinations. This is being conducted with the Ethiopian Horticulture Producers and Exporters Association and the Ethiopian Horticulture Development Agency." The amount of cargo being hauled by the national flag carrier has increased from 42000 to 110000 tones per annum in the past five years.