The Ministry of Agriculture has imported improved Boer and Kalahari Red goat breeds from South Africa, as part of efforts to raise meat productivity in a sector long held back by low-yielding indigenous animals, the Ministry said.
The first phase covers 352 goats. According to the Ministry, including this batch, the plan is to import 1,700 goats in total across subsequent phases.
Because procurement is staggered, Yimer Dawod, communication director at the Ministry, told EBR that the overall cost cannot be stated at this stage, citing the time value of money over the import period.
The Ministry said both breeds are internationally recognised for fast growth, large body frame, high meat yield and strong adaptability to different environments.
Yimer said the case for importing them is clear: indigenous Ethiopian goats typically yield no more than 8 kilograms of dressed carcass weight, while the imported breeds average 14 to 15 kilograms of pure meat, nearly double.
With proper care and nutrition, he added, they reach market weight within six months of birth, and fattening them for six to nine months could raise yields further.
The goats will first undergo quarantine at the Holeta Agricultural Research Center, which the Ministry said lasts 21 to 30 days, to verify their health. They will then be moved directly to selected agricultural research centres and Haramaya University for breed multiplication.
Yimer said strict protocols are in place to manage disease risk and prevent unregulated crossbreeding with local goats. Initially, the centres will breed the purebred imports with each other to produce pure male and female offspring.
These offspring will later be distributed to farmers within a 100-kilometre radius of the research centres, where breeding and growth will be closely monitored through controlled agricultural extension programmes.
Only at that stage will crossbreeding with selected local breeds begin, which the Ministry says will allow meat goats to be raised on a large scale and supplied to the market.
On exports, Yimer said the country will not enter the export phase in the first year, which will be devoted entirely to multiplication at the research centres. Once production reaches sufficient volume, supply will serve both domestic demand and export markets.
He said specific targets, including meat yield per goat and projected domestic and export volumes over a set period such as five years, will be determined and announced once crossbreeding begins.
The Ministry said the programme is also expected to support the goals of the “Lemat Trufat” (Bounty of Basket) Initiative by creating jobs and strengthening food and nutritional security.
Nvidia, the company whose chips power much of today’s artificial intelligence (AI), said on Thursday that founder Jensen Huang has resigned as president, chief executive and board member with immediate effect.
In a statement, the company said Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress has agreed to serve as interim chief executive while keeping her finance role until a permanent successor is named. The board, it said, has started a search and will consider both internal and external candidates.
The company also appointed Harvey C. Jones as the first-ever chair of its board. According to the statement, Jones has spent more than 30 years as an entrepreneur, technology executive and venture investor, and previously served as chief executive and executive chairman of Synopsys, a chip design software firm.
The announcement follows days of reports about Huang’s personal relationships. CNN reported that the board met late on Wednesday after reports that he had a relationship with a senior Nvidia executive, and that he was already under scrutiny over reports of an affair with a woman allegedly working as a spy for China, with the board hiring a law firm to investigate.
The two women are Alice Huang, a former executive at Singapore-based cloud company Megaspeed, and Kimberly Powell, who leads Nvidia’s health care unit. Other report said US intelligence officials have identified Alice Huang as a suspected Chinese operative, while Chinese state media called the claims “entirely baseless”.
Harvey said the board has “full confidence” in Colette and the leadership team, and expects operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap to continue without interruption.
Colette said she is committed to building on the foundation Jensen created over 33 years. Nvidia’s statement described Jensen’s contributions as profound and thanked him for his contribution to the company and the industry.
Colette joined Nvidia in September 2013 after nearly 25 years in finance roles at companies including Cisco and Microsoft, according to the company. The New York Times reported that Nvidia’s annual sales rose from $4.28 billion in 2013 to $215.9 billion in the latest fiscal year.
CNN reported that shares fell about 10 percent in premarket trading on Thursday, and noted that the stock’s size in the S&P 500 means its swings affect retirement funds worldwide. Ynet reported that the company has lost nearly $600 billion in market value since the controversy emerged.
Nvidia designs the advanced processors used to train and run AI systems, from chatbots to cloud services, so a leadership change at the top matters well beyond Silicon Valley.
Ethiopia’s flagship private geothermal project is moving again, but the country still has just one operating geothermal plant and no private project producing power, according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) new *Ethiopia 2026: Energy Policy Review*.
The report links the slow progress to a single-buyer power market, high financing costs, scattered institutional responsibilities and weak finances at the state utility, and warns that these problems are holding back wider private investment in the sector.
According to the report, Ethiopia’s technical geothermal potential exceeds 10,000 megawatts (MW), but deployment is below 0.1% of installed capacity. The country’s only operating plant is Aluto-Langano in Oromia, commissioned in 1998 with 7.3 MW.
Newly drilled wells have confirmed about 25 MW, and a World Bank-backed expansion targets 70 MW, the IEA said. The government aims for 2.5 gigawatts (GW) of geothermal power by 2030.
The Corbetti project, near Shashemene in Oromia, is the clearest test of whether private capital can change that. The report indicates that it began in 2009 with Reykjavik Geothermal, when geothermal resources were still legally classified as minerals, and that it signed a 25-year power purchase agreement with Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) at USD 75.3 per megawatt-hour.
As of 2024, it had only reached exploratory drilling, with three wells underway, according to the IEA. The report adds that in June 2026 the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG) and Taranis Operations signed a convertible loan agreement to support the next stage, as part of a USD 27 million equity investment.
That deal has since moved forward. EBR reported on October 23 that Taranis, a family-owned investment and project development company, completed the acquisition of a majority interest in Corbetti HoldCo Limited, the project’s operator, and plans to commit up to USD 27 million to lead the next phase.
It also reported that PIDG, through its arm InfraCo Africa, retains a minority stake of about 40%, and made a further equity contribution of USD 7.2 million alongside Taranis. According to Taranis, the project signed a power purchase agreement and an implementation agreement with EEP and the Ethiopian government in 2020.
The first concrete step followed within days. On October 29 that Corbetti signed a contract with UK-based Marriott Drilling Group to drill up to four exploration wells in the Corbetti Caldera. According to the project statement, a drilling rig is due on site in the coming months, with drilling expected to begin early in the new year.
The exploration is meant to confirm the resource, a step required before financial close, when funding is fully secured and construction can start. The first phase is then expected to support a 50 MW plant, with a second phase planned to reach 150 MW, the statement said. The IEA notes a potential expansion up to 500 MW.
Not every project has fared as well. Tulu Moye, which signed a 25-year agreement at USD 69.5 per megawatt-hour, entered a “pause and reassess” phase by mid-2024, the IEA said. It cited unproductive wells, financing constraints and security concerns, including armed activity that forced a temporary withdrawal of personnel.
By early 2026, talks to resume had begun, but the project had not fully restarted. Five further projects, planned by Ormat Plc and Cluff Geothermal, are still at the power purchase agreement negotiation stage, the report notes.
Solar has had a similar record, according to the IEA. The first auction in 2016 for a 100 MW project at Metehara was won by Enel Green Power at USD 58.98 per megawatt-hour, but the company could not secure debt because of foreign exchange restrictions and uncertainty over repatriating profits, the report says.
In 2019, ACWA Power won two projects totalling 250 MW at a record-low USD 25 per megawatt-hour, but both were terminated because of financing delays, foreign exchange problems and regional conflict.
A new round for the 125 MW Gad II and 100 MW Weranso projects has a final award expected by the end of 2026.
The IEA pointed to structural obstacles beyond finance. Ethiopia has no single geothermal authority, unlike Iceland or the Philippines, and responsibilities are split between the Ministry of Water and Energy, the Ministry of Mines, the Ethiopian Geological Institute, the regulator and EEP, the report says.
Approval of independent power projects can take two to three years, compared with six to nine months in Kenya, it added. Even with concessional support, long-term geothermal tariffs typically exceed USD 100 per megawatt-hour, which makes the technology uncompetitive against cheaper renewables under current conditions, according to the report.
The most striking finding concerns the single-buyer model. The IEA said large consumers cannot contract directly with geothermal or other independent producers, physical bilateral power purchase agreements are not permitted, and virtual agreements are underdeveloped.
That matters because the Digital Ethiopia 2030 roadmap is expected to drive data centre growth, and the report notes that data centres elsewhere, including Google, Meta and Microsoft, have signed direct deals for firm geothermal power.
In Ethiopia, geothermal projects instead depend on utility offtake and donor-backed financing rather than market signals, the IEA said.
The government has taken some steps. The report says the Foreign Exchange Amendment Directive No. FXD/04/2026 eases approval of external loans and supplier credits, allows bank guarantees for private loans, and gives banks more authority to approve profit repatriation.
A Regional Liquidity Support Facility, backed by KfW and Norad through the African Trade & Investment Development Insurance, will protect independent power producers from delayed payments by public offtakers, according to the IEA. Even so, developers in Africa face a cost of capital two to three times higher than in advanced economies, and tariff reform adds regulatory risk for long-lived investments.
Two programmes run by the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Institute (ATI) helped agricultural enterprises secure more than ETB 4.2 billion in financing during the 2025/26 fiscal year, according to the institute’s annual report.
The figures point to growing interest from banks and cooperatives in small agribusinesses, long seen as hard to lend to. They also show a sharp gap in how much each enterprise received.
The report says the Agri-Hub project enabled 146 micro, small and medium enterprises to secure loans totalling ETB 2.62 billion. The lenders were commercial banks, the Development Bank, rural savings and credit cooperatives and regional government support.
Agri-Hub supports enterprises in the institute’s commercialisation woredas in Oromia, Amhara, South Ethiopia and Tigray. It has provided business skills support to 1,435 enterprises so far, trained 2,766 owners and staff and given tailored advice to 578 firms.
The second programme, the youth employment initiative known as ADEY, mobilised over ETB 1.59 billion for 22,835 agricultural enterprises, the report says.
It adds that 78 percent of these were women-led. ADEY, implemented in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, linked enterprises with banks, microfinance institutions, savings cooperatives and digital finance providers.
The report also says the programme has helped establish 31,986 youth-owned agricultural enterprises this year.
The average sums involved differ widely. By calculation from the report’s figures, Agri-Hub’s loans work out at roughly ETB 18 million per enterprise, while ADEY’s financing averages about ETB 70,000. The report presents the two programmes separately and does not state whether the figures overlap.
Banks appear to be warming to the sector, but the report suggests the groundwork is still being laid. ATI says it has partnered with Tsedey Bank and Oromia Bank, with talks continuing with Siinqee Bank and Buna Bank.
It organised one national and nine regional workshops reaching more than 695 enterprises on financial literacy and bankability. It also completed a national Agri-SME finance strategy, which includes an investment readiness certificate framework, six finance pathways and an implementation roadmap.
The strategy followed an assessment of public bank financing instruments and alternative financing mechanisms.
Kenya could have saved up to $900 million on the initial construction of its Mombasa–Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) had it matched the per-kilometre cost of comparable lines in the region, including Ethiopia’s Addis Ababa–Djibouti railway, according to the World Bank’s latest Kenya Economic Update.
The report, released in November 2026, puts Kenya’s cost at about $7.6 million per kilometre, against $5.7 million for Tanzania and $5.3 million for the Djibouti–Addis Ababa line.
The report describes Kenya’s line as diesel-powered, while the Tanzanian and Ethiopia–Djibouti lines are electrified. According to the report, Kenya’s higher cost reflects, in part, weaknesses in procurement and land acquisition.
The World Bank estimates that at least 30 percent of the potential savings can be attributed to governance challenges rather than terrain or engineering differences. It cites a preference for direct contracting over competitive tendering, land speculation, and fraud in land titling, valuation and compensation payments.
The figure is a benchmark, not a finding of theft. The report itself acknowledges that construction dates, terrain and technical specifications affect each project’s price, and the 30 percent applies to the estimated savings, not to the entire SGR budget.
Rio Times, in its coverage, noted that the comparison has limits because Kenya’s line uses diesel locomotives while the other two are electrified. Any finding of individual wrongdoing would require separate evidence and due process.
The report also points to a 2026 Transparency International Kenya assessment, which used the Infrastructure Corruption Risk Assessment Tool and flagged the SGR as particularly vulnerable to corruption. Beyond the railway, the World Bank noted that direct procurement and public-private partnerships arising from unsolicited proposals remain common in Kenya.
It warned that awarding contracts to connected parties increases the likelihood of collusion and cost markups during project execution. Africa Sustainability Matters, citing the World Bank, reported that corruption and collusion cost Kenya an estimated 2 percent of gross domestic product annually.
The Addis Ababa–Djibouti line was financed partly by commercial loans from China’s Exim Bank and partly by concessional loans from the Chinese government, and it opened to commercial service in January 2018.
Media reports have put its total cost at about $4 billion for roughly 756 kilometres, which is broadly consistent with the World Bank’s per-kilometre estimate. The railway has cut the journey between Addis Ababa and the Port of Djibouti from about two days by road to around 12 hours, and it serves the government’s export-led industrialisation strategy.
The cost question carries weight because of how Kenya paid for its railway. Rio Times reported that Kenya borrowed about $5 billion from China in 2014 and 2015 for the Mombasa–Nairobi line.
Kenya’s government has long-standing plans to extend the line westward through the Rift Valley to Kisumu and Malaba on the Ugandan border, to link the port of Mombasa to landlocked neighbours. The World Bank’s analysis adds pressure on Nairobi to show value for money before committing to further phases.
Ethiopia, which will host COP32 in 2027, has joined China and Türkiye in launching a global initiative to strengthen cooperation on carbon crediting markets, even as its own efforts to turn forest carbon into revenue are still waiting to reach the deal-making stage. The initiative was unveiled on Wednesday at the 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31) in the Turkish coastal city of Antalya, Xinhua reported.
According to Xinhua, the launch took place at the COP31 China Pavilion and was attended by government officials and representatives of international organisations, including the United Nations and the World Bank. COP31 opened on Monday and runs until Nov. 20, with representatives from nearly 200 countries and regions taking part, the news agency said.
The initiative’s document calls on governments and intergovernmental bodies to improve governance systems for high-integrity carbon credits, Xinhua reported. It encourages cooperation among carbon crediting mechanisms and market participants to promote a high-integrity supply of credits, and calls for the responsible use of those credits to generate effective market demand.
It also urges parties to enhance information sharing and the interconnectivity of market infrastructure. The three countries noted that carbon crediting mechanisms help optimise the allocation of mitigation resources, channel climate finance and unlock new drivers of green development.
Li Gao, China’s vice minister of ecology and environment, said the initiative is guided by fairness, inclusiveness and voluntary participation, and is open to all. “We welcome governments, international organisations and relevant institutions to join us in delivering a new global public good for climate action,” Li said, according to Xinhua.
Fatma Varank, Turkish deputy minister of environment, urbanisation and climate change, told Xinhua the initiative would give emerging economies a platform for South-South collaboration. She noted that developing countries often face financial and technical constraints in establishing and operating carbon markets, and said partnerships formed directly among such countries are especially valuable.
Selam Kidane (PhD), chief strategist for Ethiopia’s COP32 Presidency, thanked the Chinese government for proposing the initiative and described it as an important platform for international cooperation on climate solutions. She said Ethiopia was pleased to join China and other partners in co-sponsoring and launching the initiative, describing it as an important platform for strengthening international cooperation on climate solutions.
Cristina Reis, extraordinary secretary of carbon markets at Brazil’s Ministry of Finance, also welcomed the move, telling Xinhua that bridging voluntary and compliance carbon markets is essential to driving corporate emissions reductions.
Ethiopia has also been laying the groundwork for forest carbon trading. As EBR reported reported in June, the country has put a legal framework for forest carbon trading in place through Forest Carbon Trading Directive No. 1122/2025, which allows forest owners and project developers to register carbon credit projects and jurisdictional programmes. Under the directive, communities engaged in state forest co-management are entitled to 80 per cent of revenue proceeds.
The House of Peoples’ Representatives approved the directive on 30 June, the same day it was discussed at the Second Agriculture Science Seminar Series. In May, the Council of Ministers also approved a draft Carbon Market Proclamation aimed at operationalising carbon trading, revenue sharing and international transactions.
Yet turning that readiness into revenue has proved slower. Speaking at the seminar, Motuma Tolera (PhD), Head of the Forest Sector Transformation Unit at the Ethiopian Forestry Development, said the Oromia Forested Landscape Program (OFLP) was still in “advanced negotiations” after more than a year of market outreach.
According to Motuma, potential revenue could reach $200 million if CORSIA-eligible certification is achieved, but the figure remains provisional and depends on securing international buyers and meeting stringent standards. CORSIA is the International Civil Aviation Organization’s offsetting scheme, where credits have traded at a premium of $10 to $20 per tonne over the past year, he said.
Motuma added that the programme engaged more than 25 prospective buyers across three continents before narrowing talks to a shortlist of traders and intermediaries. He also said the ISFL standard was approved for CORSIA use only in April, and that the National Jurisdictional Forest Carbon Program, being registered under the ART-TREES methodology, is still in validation.
Ethiopia holds 26.75 million hectares of forest, equal to 23.6 per cent of its land cover, according to Motuma, which points to substantial carbon stock potential. The experience of the Humbo and Sodo reforestation projects, started in 2006, shows how long the road can be: they have sequestered 462,606 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent and channelled $1.63 million to community cooperatives over two decades.
Its emphasis on high-integrity supply, responsible demand and connected market infrastructure mirrors buyers’ growing insistence on rigorously verified credits, which the directive itself reflects by requiring independent, internationally accredited verification and ten-year record keeping.
Those requirements raise costs, particularly for smaller projects, so a South-South platform that shares information and pools technical experience could help. With COP32 due to be hosted in Ethiopia in 2027, the country has a visible stake in how such markets are shaped, and also a reputational incentive to show that its carbon framework can deliver real transactions by then.
Ethiopia’s economy grew by 9.8% in the 2024/25 fiscal year, but the government collected tax equal to only about 7.8% of GDP, a level that ranks among the lowest in sub-Saharan Africa. That gap between growth and revenue runs through the African Development Bank’s Country Focus Report 2026 on Ethiopia.
According to the report, the country’s development financing challenge is less about a shortage of financial instruments than about credibility, coordination and execution.
The headline numbers are strong. The report says industry expanded by 13%, mining surged by 205.4% and manufacturing grew by 10.3%, while inflation fell to 16% from a peak of 33.8% in 2022/23. Exports grew by 119%, narrowing the current account deficit to 0.2% of GDP, and the fiscal deficit including grants eased to 1.6% of GDP.
The bank credits Home-Grown Economic Reform 2.0, including the shift to a floating exchange rate and interest-rate-based monetary policy, for restoring some credibility.
The scale of what Ethiopia must fund makes the revenue shortfall more pressing. According to the report, the country needs to mobilise US$608 billion by 2030 and about US$5 billion annually between 2025 and 2050 to implement its Long-term Low Emissions Development Strategy. A further sum equal to 13.2% of GDP is needed each year to support structural transformation.
The bank says the 15% tax-to-GDP ratio targeted under the National Medium-Term Revenue Strategy is the level generally required to finance the Sustainable Development Goals, almost double today’s 7.8%.
The revenue picture is far weaker than the growth figures suggest. The report says Ethiopia’s overall tax buoyancy, which measures how far revenue responds to economic growth, stands at 0.91, below the African average of 1.05.
It adds that recent gains came mainly from import surcharges and excise duties on telecom services rather than from a broad expansion of the tax base. The tax structure, it says, relies heavily on border taxes, excise duties and indirect taxation, while personal and business income taxes contribute relatively little.
The regional comparison is stark. The report puts the African average tax-to-GDP ratio at 13.4% and the regional average at 11%, with Ethiopia well below both, and notes that the sub-Saharan African average is roughly 18%.
Personal income tax peaks at 35% in Ethiopia, which the report shows is above the regional average of 28.7%. The rates are therefore not low, but few people and firms actually pay them.
Figures that EBR reported in August from the Ministry of Revenue’s Large Taxpayers Branch Office show how narrow that base is in practice. The office collected 522.67 billion birr in 2025/26 from 746 registered taxpayers, yet 29% of them generated 80% of the total. Just 31 state-owned enterprises paid 217.87 billion birr, or 42% of branch revenue, and the top ten taxpayers together accounted for 48.71%, led by Ethio Telecom at 65.84 billion birr.
The AfDB’s finding that gains came from telecom excise and border measures fits this pattern: the revenue is coming from payers the state already knows well, many of which it owns.
The same state-owned enterprises that dominate tax payments also worry the bank. According to the report, higher SOE dividends helped raise non-tax revenue, but SOE-related fiscal pressures, weak oversight, quasi-fiscal activities and contingent liabilities remain a major constraint on the budget and on private-sector confidence.
In effect, the state leans on its own companies for revenue while their balance sheets pose a risk to public finances.
The same concentration is now shaping targets. According to the branch’s own planning documents, it has been assigned 816.70 billion birr for 2026/27, which is 56% above what it collected last year and represents 76% of the country’s entire domestic tax revenue target.
That leaves a very large share of the national revenue plan resting on fewer than 750 firms. The AfDB report points to the risk on the other side of the ledger.
Informal activity accounts for an estimated 30–35% of GDP and 70–80% of employment, and IMF estimates cited in the report place Ethiopia’s tax capacity at 17–20% of GDP, implying large revenue losses linked to informality and weak compliance.
The report also describes what this does to the businesses that are inside the net. A narrow tax base, it says, forces high effective tax burdens onto a small pool of formal firms and workers, which reinforces the incentive to stay informal.
The Large Taxpayers Branch Office acknowledged related problems among smaller taxpayers, including under-declared sales, fake invoices and late audited financial statements.
For small and medium-sized businesses, whose combined contribution is modest, the experience of tax collection remains a frequent source of frustration, and the AfDB’s prescriptions read like a response to it.
It recommends moving from blanket audits to risk-based enforcement, cutting face-to-face interactions through digital systems, and offering simplified presumptive regimes to micro-firms. It also argues that formalisation should start with simple registration, licensing and digital payment inclusion, and only later bring taxation and enforcement at low rates.
There is evidence that better administration pays. The report says reforms such as digitalisation, e-filing and e-payments, together with a stronger Large Taxpayers Office, contributed to an average 24.8% rise in revenues over three years.
It adds, however, that fragmented taxpayer registries, weak risk-based audits and uneven capacity at regional level persist. The bank says Ethiopia’s constraints lie “more in implementation than policy design”.
Debt adds urgency. The report states that Ethiopia’s debt is assessed as unsustainable and that the country remains in debt distress, with total public and publicly guaranteed debt of US$71.34 billion, or about 34.8% of GDP.
Ethiopia agreed a memorandum of understanding on key terms with the Official Creditor Committee under the G20 Common Framework in July 2025, and with Eurobond holders in January 2026, but bilateral agreements are still to come.
The bank projects the fiscal deficit will widen to 2.5% of GDP in 2025/26, driven by rising debt-service costs, security spending and weak tax administration.
The cost of that debt reaches public services. External debt stands at US$31.3 billion, or 15.5% of GDP, and the report says external debt servicing absorbed about 15% of government revenue between 2020 and 2023.
It warns that interest payments risk squeezing spending on health, and that high debt burdens limit fiscal space for education, healthcare and infrastructure.
Outside shocks could make matters worse. The report’s analysis of the Middle East conflict says more than 90% of Ethiopia’s international trade passes through Djibouti, so disruption in the Red Sea would hit the country directly.
It adds that Ethiopia imports nearly all its fuel and over 90% of its nitrogen fertiliser from Gulf states. A major oil price spike could raise inflation by around three percentage points, the report warns.
The benefits of growth have yet to reach many households. The report cites the 2024 Multidimensional Poverty Index, under which 68.7% of Ethiopians are multidimensionally poor, and puts youth unemployment at 23.1% and urban unemployment at 19.2%.
Remittances reached about US$7.1 billion in 2024, exceeding foreign direct investment of around US$4.0 billion and official development assistance of about US$5.4 billion, though the bank says they are used mostly for household consumption rather than investment.
The bank also sees untapped potential beyond taxes. According to the report, mining contributes only about 1% of GDP and revenues, 14% of exports and around 54,000 jobs, against an ambition of 10% of GDP by 2030.
Less than 11.7% of Ethiopia’s estimated 48,030 MW of hydropower potential is exploited, and distribution losses are near 22%. Coffee earned about US$2.6 billion from roughly 470,000 tonnes.
The AfDB still projects growth of 7.0% in 2025/26 and 8.5% in 2026/27, with inflation easing to 14.7% and then 8.7%. It cautions that this depends on reform progress, the resumption of external financing and domestic stability, with conflict in Amhara and Oromia, renewed tensions in Tigray and frictions with Somalia among the downside risks. Its sequence is “stabilisation first, mobilisation second, and scaling last”.
The National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) has kept its policy rate unchanged at 16 percent, even as its own figures show broad money growing at 40.2 percent year on year, well above projected nominal GDP growth.
The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) announced the decision after its 8th meeting, which was presented today at the bank’s headquarters in Addis Ababa. The corridor band of plus or minus 300 basis points was also left unchanged.
According to a press release presented by National Bank of Ethiopia Governor Eyob Tekalign (PhD), annual reserve money growth accelerated to 87.2 percent in the first quarter of 2026/27, up from 72.6 percent in the same quarter a year earlier. Broad money growth also accelerated to 40.2 percent from 33.2 percent over the same period.
The release attributes the surge mainly to the bank’s gold purchases, which raised net foreign assets and injected local currency into the banking system. It also says monetary and financial conditions “signal moderate looseness”, while stressing that a tight stance remains indispensable for reaching single-digit inflation in the medium term.
On inflation, the Committee said price growth has begun to ease from a supply-driven peak but, at 14.9 percent in September, remains far above its goal.
The release names bread and cereals, vegetables and pulses, and coffee beans as the main food drivers, and electricity tariffs, kerosene and firewood on the non-food side. The Committee expects inflation to decline but to stay in double digits over the six-month forecast horizon.
Asked by EBR why the rate was not raised given the pace of money growth, Governor Eyob Tekalign said the high figures do not mean the money has reached the wider economy.
He said liquidity is concentrated in certain banks, that credit growth has not generated the expected money multiplier effect, and that the gold-related money has not been generally injected into the broader economy.
“Under the current circumstances, inflation is not linked to money expansion,” he said, adding that the Committee still considers a tight stance necessary as a matter of risk management.
Eyob said the bank would recover liquidity released through foreign transactions via foreign currency sales, strengthen open market operations and, depending on conditions, adjust and differentiate reserve requirements across banks.
The Governor’s account sits uneasily with some independent views. Economists interviewed by EBR have argued that broad money is the main driver of Ethiopia’s inflation, and the release itself shows that outstanding bank credit grew 42.6 percent and net deposits 85.4 percent over the quarter.
The release also says Treasury bill and interbank rates have been negative in real terms since May, while commercial banks’ lending and deposit rates have not changed.
It attributes the falling short-term rates to the large excess reserves banks hold with the NBE. On the fiscal side, the Committee noted that the government has not taken direct advances from the NBE for more than 27 months, the longest such period on record.
On the foreign exchange market, Eyob acknowledged that the gap between the official and parallel rates “has not narrowed down as much as we wanted it to”, despite the July measures, which cut the FX commission rate from 2.5 percent to 1.5 percent and the export surrender requirement from 50 percent to 30 percent.
He said those steps had an immediate effect on the formal market and helped keep foreign currency supply stable.
The bank will now undertake further reforms, work with commercial banks to improve foreign currency supply and customer handling, and begin closely examining their capital adequacy and compliance with foreign exchange rules, he said. The 8th release did not review the July FX measures.
The outcome leaves the NBE relying on liquidity absorption rather than higher rates to contain inflationary risk, at a time when the Governor argues the inflation problem lies largely on the supply side.
The Committee will meet again at the end of January 2027, or earlier if conditions warrant, and whether open market operations can mop up the gold-driven liquidity and narrow the parallel-market gap will shape what it decides.
Ethiopian Electric Utility (EEU) has signed a memorandum of understanding with Huawei Technologies, China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) and Beijing Forever Technology to study electric charging for heavy trucks along the Ethiopia–Djibouti corridor.
The signing took place in Bishoftu on Saturday, as the utility inaugurated a new batch of public charging stations in six cities.
CEO Getu Geremew told journalists that the corridor initiative targets freight rather than private cars.
The corridor is the country’s main trade route, he said, and heavy trucks running on diesel carry much of the economy.
Each truck charging point would draw several megawatts of power, so the study will first assess whether transmission lines, substations and power capacity can cope, and then decide where stations should be sited and at what capacity.
No investment figure has been set. Getu said the study will determine the cost, which he expects to run to many millions of dollars, and that the MoU itself covers the study’s budget.
The CEO indicate that the implementation would follow once the study shows the project is viable within the coming six months.
On financing, he said the partner institutions and banks would be sources, alongside investment from EEU’s own revenue.
Getu also gave a rough sense of the economics. He said fuelling a heavy truck can cost 4,000 to 5,000 birr, against an electricity charge of roughly 700 to 1,000 birr.
Some of the new stations can already charge two heavy trucks at a time, he added, and the corridor plan will extend to Dire Dawa and Semera.
He said the utility had earlier spent about $10 million on procuring 40 charging stations, of which around 14 or 15 are now operating and more than 10 are under construction.
At the passenger-car end, a press release from the utility said the network has grown from three to 14 stations, with a combined capacity to charge 150 vehicles at once.
Eight of the stations are in Addis Ababa, with the rest in Bishoftu, Mojo, Adama, Dilla and Hawassa.
According to the EEU, 108,762 vehicles have been served so far, avoiding about 3.39 million kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions.
Charging costs 14.85 birr per kilowatt-hour overnight, 16.57 birr during the day and 18.28 birr at peak hours.
The Utility also acknowledged that charging capacity lags behind demand, putting the number of electric vehicles that have entered the country at nearly 140,000.
Ecofin Agency reported in June that government officials estimate more than 115,000 are on the road, with some authorities putting the figure higher.
The utility plans more than 40 stations nationwide, including 16 along the corridor, Getu said at a June launch.
Further phases will reach Mekelle, Bahir Dar, Gondar, Dessie, Kombolcha and other towns.
A Huawei vice president for North Africa, speaking at the event, said Ethiopia’s policy on green transport was among the strongest in the region, and that the company hoped to extend its work to heavy transport.
Getu linked the expansion to preparations for COP32, the climate summit Ethiopia will host, and to the aim of cutting diesel and foreign currency spending on fuel imports.
Dashen Bank has launched a co-branded Platinum prepaid Mastercard linked to Ethiopian Airlines’ ShebaMiles loyalty programme, combining payments, travel perks and rewards in a single product.
The card was unveiled at a ceremony at the Sheraton Addis Ababa on Thursday, bringing together executives from the bank, the airline and the global payments network.
According to the press release, the card is issued by Dashen and runs on Mastercard’s global network. Beyond the miles earned from flying, holders can collect additional benefits by using the card for daily and travel-related spending.
Privileges include access to more than 1,600 airport lounges worldwide through Mastercard Airport Experiences, Airport Fast Track services at selected airports and global data roaming.
Shehryar Ali, Mastercard’s Senior Vice President and Country Manager for East Africa and the Indian Ocean Islands, told guests the roaming benefit amounts to 1GB of free flexi-roaming in any destination.
The card comes in physical and virtual forms. The virtual version can be provisioned through the Dashen Bank SuperApp, which the bank says has more than 2 million active users, so customers do not need to visit a branch to start using it. Shehryar said the aim was to “remove friction” and bring convenience through digital channels.
Asfaw Alemu, Chief Executive Officer of Dashen Bank, said the product goes “beyond miles” by turning everyday spending into rewards. He also said he was told that this is the first time Mastercard has launched a co-brand of this nature in Africa. The claim was made from the podium, and the press release does not independently confirm it.
Asfaw traced the relationship with Mastercard to January 2008, when the two signed a card agreement, and noted that it has since produced multi-currency international prepaid cards, payment gateway services and, more recently, a virtual card. Shehryar said the three institutions worked on the project for one and a half years.
The airline’s reach is central to the card’s appeal. Shehryar said Ethiopian Airlines serves about 170 to 180 destinations, including 25 within Ethiopia, and that its loyalty programme has 5.7 million members, figures he said he had checked with the airline’s loyalty team.
The press release says the card is designed for frequent flyers, premium clients, business travellers, the Ethiopian diaspora and digitally minded users.
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Betegbar Yaregal
EBR
