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Oct 1 , 2022

Rip the Band-Aid Off. Float the Birr. Liberalize Capital Account

The foreign exchange market is seeing a war of attrition, with the Dollar gradually taking out its opponents as its strength grows unmatched. Neither is the green buck taking any hostages. A blitzk...

Sep 24 , 2022

Why Ethiopia's Economy Catches Cold When Europe Sneezes

Look no further than the flower industry to appreciate the importance of the European market to underdeveloped economies such as Ethiopia. Within a decade and a half, the country has shot up the list...

Sep 17 , 2022

Long Overdue Finance Sector Opening Not Silver Bullet

The debate shortly after the Council of Ministers nodded a bill to open the financial sector to foreign capital was emblematic of how the economic discourse has deteriorated. Some thought this entails...

Sep 10 , 2022

Export Performance Seems Impressive. Details Say Otherwise

Ethiopia's policymakers and wonks began planning the economy and directing its course in the 1950s. There have been only two years since Ethiopia registered a positive balance of payment: in 1972 and...

Sep 3 , 2022

The War's Tragic Resumption. Not Too Late to Stop It.

The late American President, Ronald Reagan, went back after 50 years to a college in Chicago where he graduated to give a commencement address. A year into his consequential presidency, Reagan used th...

Aug 27 , 2022

This Time Must be the Charm for Capital Markets

Review history; a developed capital market in Ethiopia in this age and era would have seemed settled. It was not. A courtship with the money market dated as far back as over a century ago, when par...

Aug 20 , 2022

Regulating the RIDEing Industry; the Uncommon Call

Calling bureaucrats to police industries and discipline their actors could be as good as inviting trouble. The track record of regulators is often contrary to the intention. Regulations follow new ind...

Aug 14 , 2022

National Dialogue! What National Dialogue?

The call for lofty ideals such as national dialogue and consensus has been as old as Ethiopia's ingrate revolution. It may mean different things for various groups as successive regimes danced around...

Aug 6 , 2022

Finance to the Tiller! Plebiscite on the Land Question

Few initiatives by the administration of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD) have been publicised as aggressively as self-sufficiency in agriculture production. To be precise, it is about scaling up wheat...

Jul 30 , 2022

What Do New Banks Offer Their Older Cousins Don't?

Ethiopia's banking industry is not merely underdeveloped. It has historically regressed. Calls for the financial sector to open for international capital, technology, network and skill remain dwarfed...

Jul 23 , 2022

Tweaking Tax Policies No Silver Bullet to Fund Budget Deficit

The flip side of a government spending plan is financing. Behind the campaign promises, capital expenditures, public sector wage raises, and social welfare programmes is a dilemma. How can all of t...

Jul 17 , 2022

Durable Peace Indispensable for Negotiating External Debt Restructuring

Messrs Ahmed Shide and Eyob Tekalegn (PhD), minister and state minister for Finance, have lately been touting “progress” to restructure Ethiopia's sovereign debt. A summit in Paris that brought to...

Jul 9 , 2022

Fuel Subsidies Phasing Out. Floating the Birr Yet to Happen

Fuel shortages are a staple in Ethiopia. Severe policy miscalculation in the form of subsidies has led to underinvestment in the retail fuel business. It fed a thriving contraband trade in areas bor...

Jul 2 , 2022

Giving Peace a Chance. Long Overdue.

After nearly two years since the civil war broke out in northern Ethiopia, adversaries in this regrettably brutal conflict appear to have realised that there neither is victorious nor the vanquished....

Jun 25 , 2022

The Local Elections Everybody Forgets About

It is not the best of times to be in charge of governance in Ethiopia, whether at the federal or regional levels. The news of atrocities coming from around the country is horrific. Enervating insec...

Jun 18 , 2022

Central Bank Shoots Itself in the Feet. Again!

Some of Ethiopia's economic policymakers may take solace from realising that inflation is a global phenomenon. It would be unwise to disregard their reading on what transpires around the world. In the...


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The Elections Offered Order at the Centre, Silence at the Edges

For a political veteran as controversial as Getachew Reda, last week's national elections...

Editorial | Jun 6 , 2026

Addis Abeba Pours a New Story in Every Cup, Where Tradition Meets Global Influence

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The long-delayed census has returned to Parliament not as a counting exercise, but as a fi...

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