Ethiopian Airlines (ET, Addis Ababa International) is in talks with the Congolese government and could agree terms for a start-up carrier based in Kinshasa N'Djili later this year, Chief Executive Officer Tewolde Gebremariam has told Bloomberg newswire. The Congo hub would serve the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC countries) - the Republic of Congo, Gabon, Cameroon, Chad, the Central African Republic and Equatorial Guinea - taking it into direct competition with ECAIR - Equatorial Congo Airlines (EQR, Brazzaville) and the much anticipated bloc carrier, Air CEMAC (Brazzaville). With its West African subsidiary, ASKY Airlines (KP, Lomé), well into its fifth year of operations, and southern African subsidiary, Malawi Airlines (3W, Lilongwe International), now operational, Ethiopian has been looking to for the last piece of its African puzzle - Central Africa. “The Congo is a large country and a large market and while peace has been a problem there seems to be a better situation developing,” Gebremariam said. “We think it’s going to attract a lot of foreign direct investment, and it’s right in the middle of central Africa.” Mr Gebremariam said that once operational, it would employ the use of "dual hub" flights which could see the advent of Addis Ababa International to São Paulo Guarulhos via Kinshasa N'Djili flights as well as Addis Ababa to New York JFK via Lomé or even Addis Ababa to Australia via Malawi.