The Ethiopian Roads Authority (ERA) is looking at a $650m loan from the African Development Bank to improve the roads.

The authority intends to use the funds for the Road Sector Development Programme (RSD) by 2015.

The authority will use $350m of the proceeds from the bank on five new projects, according to 2Merkato.com.

So far, ERA has awarded 765 contracts in the Road Sector Development Programme, of which 469 contracts were won by the local companies.

Most of the funds for the upgrade projects were secured from the World Bank, the Chinese government, the European Union and the African Development Bank.

The RSD programme has developed about 58,000km of roads, including federal and regional roads and additional roads were also upgraded.

The total road network has increased to 53,997km from 26,550km, with the road density up from 24.1 to 49.09km per 1000m2.