Ethiopia's Industrial Parks Were Built for Foreign Investors. Last Year, 84% of New Projects Were Ethiopian.

Ethiopia's industrial parks were built to attract foreign manufacturers. Last fiscal year, the investors filling them were overwhelmingly Ethiopian.

The Industrial Parks Development Corporation (IPDC) approved 166 new investment projects in the 2025/26 fiscal year, carrying combined registered capital of more than $750 million. Domestic investors accounted for 84% of them — roughly 139 projects. Foreign direct investment made up 10%, about 17 projects. Joint ventures took the remaining 6%.

What changed

The parks programme was conceived as an FDI instrument: serviced land, ready-built sheds, customs facilitation and reliable power, offered to foreign manufacturers who would export from Ethiopia and employ Ethiopians. Foreign firms — from China, the United States, the United Kingdom, India and Djibouti — still operate inside them.

But on new approvals, the ratio has inverted. Eight in ten projects entering the parks last year were domestic.

The output figures point the same way. Production for the domestic market reached 26.7 billion birr in import-substituting goods, up 44% year on year, concentrated in Bole Lemi, Adama and Debre Berhan. Exports also grew — $266.9 million, more than double the roughly $124 million recorded in 2024/25 — but the faster growth is in goods made in Ethiopia for Ethiopians.

The rest of the ledger

• Over 70,000 new jobs created across the parks.
• IPDC revenue exceeded 5.8 billion birr for the fiscal year.
• 152 enterprises linked to 5,800 farmers through market-linkage programmes, moving
• Sectors span agro-processing, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, textiles and garments,

Why it matters

A parks programme filling up with domestic investors is not automatically a failure or a success — it depends on which reading is right.

The optimistic one: import substitution is working. Ethiopian firms are producing goods that were previously bought with scarce foreign currency, which is exactly what a country rationing dollars wants. A 44% jump in import-substituting output supports that.

The cautious one: 10% FDI on new approvals is a thin number for infrastructure built and financed specifically to attract it, in a year when foreign investors globally had plenty of places to go.

One figure would settle it, and IPDC did not publish it. The corporation disclosed the $750 million in combined registered capital but not how it splits between domestic, foreign and joint-venture projects. If the 17 foreign projects carry most of the capital, the programme is still doing its original job at lower volume. If they do not, the shift is real.

Sources

• Birr Metrics, "Foreign Investors Once Dominated Industrial Parks. Now 84% of New Projects Are
• Underlying data: Industrial Parks Development Corporation (IPDC), 2025/26 fiscal year figures.

Editorial note: the capital split by investor category was not disclosed by IPDC and is not inferred here. Project counts of 139 / 17 / 10 are derived from the published percentages (84% / 10% / 6%) applied to 166 total approvals and are approximate.