PS: Political Science & Politics
China–Ethiopia Relations and Industrial Development: A Brief Evaluation
2025-07-25
Ethiopia aspired to become Africa’s “light manufacturing hub” and a “lower middle-income country” by 2025 (National Planning Commission 2016, 143, 169). Successive Ethiopian governments launched long-term plans and pursued industrial policies in line with a declared “developmental state” approach inspired by Japanese, South Korean, and Chinese models (Aberg and Becker 2020; Cheru and Oqubay 2019; Clapham 2018; Fourie 2015; Gebreeyesus 2013; Oqubay 2018). The intention was to build on the country’s comparative advantages of cheap land and labor to develop manufacturing with backward linkages to the domestic economy, focus on labor-intensive light manufacturing, build special economic zones (SEZs) to attract foreign direct investment (FDI), and promote exports for global markets to create jobs, enhance skills, expand the private sector, and kickstart wider industrialization.