Assessment of Chinese Financed and Built Light Rail Project in Addis Ababa

 The Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives journal published in March 2026 an in-depth assessment titled "The Road Divides: When Funding Shapes Form - Assessing the Connectivity Impacts of China-financed Light Rail in Addis Ababa" by Guibo Sun, The University of Manchester, and Kristen Zhao, Manchester Metropolitan University.  

Chinese loans provided $475 million for financing most of the Addis Ababa Light Rail Transit (AALRT), a system that rings the capital city.  Completed by Chinese companies almost ten years ago, the system was designed to move up to 60,000 passengers per hour.  AALRT was promoted as a showcase project for the Belt and Road Initiative.

The assessment concludes that AALRT fell far short of its promises.  Chronic service disruptions and limited maintenance funding mean only about a third of its 41 trains are operational, transporting just 55,000 passengers a day, a fraction of its projected capacity.  Instead of alleviating congestion in Addis Ababa, the system has contributed to the creation of new traffic bottlenecks, with daily life in Addis Ababa being impacted by both reduced connectivity and inadequate transfer capacity.

China-built Light Rail in Addis Ababa Faces Problems

 The Diplomat published on 3 February 2023 a report titled "China and Ethiopia: The Addis Light Train Stuck in Slow Motion" by Istvan Tarrosy and Zoltan Voros, both at University of Pecs in Hungary.

Since opening in 2015, the Chinese-built light rail system in Addis Ababa has experienced electrical outages, most of the trains no longer function, and ridership has fallen from a high of 105-110,000 daily passengers to 56,000 today.  Repairs and maintenance have posed a challenge.

Comment: It sounds like the Metro system in Washington except that the Addis Ababa light rail began operating in 2015 and part of the Washington system has been around since 1976.

China and Turkey Build Railways in Ethiopia

 The China Africa Research Initiative published in January 2021 a working paper titled "Laying the Tracks: The Political Economy of Railway Development in Ethiopia's Railway Sector and Implications for Technology Transfer" by Yunnan Chen.  

The paper examines Ethiopia's Chinese-financed railway projects, including the Addis-Djibouti Railway, contrasting it to Ethiopia's experience with subsequent European/Turkish financed projects.  

Chinese Transportation Projects in Ethiopia

The Diplomat published on 26 January 2019 an analysis titled "Revisiting Chinese Transportation Projects in Ethiopia" by Istvan Tarrosy, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and Zoltan Voros, University of Pecs.

The authors revisited the Chinese financed and built light rail system in Addis Ababa and the railway between Addis Ababa and Djibouti. They questioned how Ethiopia can make either project profitable and asked what happens if Ethiopia fails to repay the loans provided by China. Neither the light railway nor the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway will be able to generate the desired income, although the railway may help increase trade as the freight trains come on line. China has already extended the debt repayment period from 10 to 30 years, probably because Ethiopia failed to start paying back the loans. The authors concluded that the debt is a worrisome issue for Ethiopia.