The Ethiopian Herald published on 17 October 2020 an article titled "Chinese Companies Invest Over U.S. $1.1 Billion in Ethiopia."
Chinese companies are the top investors in Ethiopia in terms of number of projects and financial capital. Cumulative investment capital for registered projects, most operational and some not, now totals about $1.15 billion.
This article may be misleading. Thierry Pairault points out that the most recent UNCTAD study reports cumulative FDI stock received by Ethiopia by the end of 2019 totals about $25 billion. The Ethiopian figure of $1.15 billion is a sum of flows or accumulative investment capital. He suggests China's investment stock in Ethiopia should be around 4 percent of total inward FDI. Although bilateral FDI numbers are not publicly available, it is possible the Arab funds are more important sources of FDI stock.
Xinhua published an article on 29 January 2020 titled "China Remains to Be Top Foreign Investment Source of Ethiopia in 2019: UN Report." Drawing on UNCTAD data for 2019, Xinhua concluded that China provided about 60 percent of Ethiopia's FDI for that year. It is probably accurate to say China is single the most important source of annual FDI flows to Ethiopia in recent years.
