01Key Takeaways
- Ethiopia imported $17.05 billion worth of goods in 2023, up 3.10% from $16.54 billion in 2022, roughly six times the country's export total that year.
- China supplied 32.68% of imports, worth $5.57 billion, more than the next three suppliers combined.
- Mineral fuels were the top import category at 15.55% ($2.65 billion), since Ethiopia has no domestic oil production.
- Ethiopia's top three suppliers, China, India, and Kuwait, made up 50.07% of total import value in 2023.
025-Year Trend
| Year | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Value | $15.5B | $14.1B | $15.3B | $16.5B | $17.1B |
03Top Import Markets (2023)
| Rank | Partner | Value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | China | $5.6B | 32.7% |
| 2 | India | $1.6B | 9.6% |
| 3 | Kuwait | $1.3B | 7.8% |
| 4 | Saudi Arabia | $1.1B | 6.6% |
| 5 | United States | $1.1B | 6.3% |
| 6 | Morocco | $676.6M | 4.0% |
| 7 | Turkey | $620.0M | 3.6% |
| 8 | United Arab Emirates | $471.9M | 2.8% |
| 9 | Egypt | $454.7M | 2.7% |
| 10 | Japan | $381.9M | 2.2% |
04Top Import Categories (2023)
| Rank | Category | Value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mineral Fuels, Mineral Oils and Products of their Distillation; Bituminous Substances; Mineral Waxes | $2.7B | 15.5% |
| 2 | Nuclear Reactors, Boilers, Machinery and Mechanical Appliances; Parts thereof | $1.9B | 11.3% |
| 3 | Electrical Machinery and Equipment and parts thereof; Sound Recorders and Reproducers, Television Image and Sound Recorders and Reproducers, and Parts and Accessories of such Articles | $1.3B | 7.8% |
| 4 | Vehicles other than Railway or Tramway Rolling-Stock, and parts and accessories thereof | $1.3B | 7.7% |
| 5 | Fertilisers | $1.2B | 7.0% |
| 6 | Plastics and Articles thereof | $832.5M | 4.9% |
| 7 | Animal or Vegetable Fats and Oils and their Cleavage Products; Prepared Edible Fats; Animal or Vegetable Waxes | $749.6M | 4.4% |
| 8 | Pharmaceutical Products | $676.7M | 4.0% |
| 9 | Iron and Steel | $672.7M | 3.9% |
| 10 | Cereals | $576.0M | 3.4% |
05Trade Partner Map
06Analysis
China Supplies Nearly a Third of Everything Ethiopia Buys
Ethiopia imported $17.05 billion worth of goods in 2023, up 3.10% from $16.54 billion the year before, a total running roughly six times the country's export figure covered elsewhere on this site. China supplied 32.68% of that total, worth $5.57 billion, more than the next three suppliers combined. Ethiopia is the second-largest borrower from China in Africa, and Chinese loans financed major projects including the $2.5 billion Addis-Djibouti Railway, a relationship that shows up clearly in the trade data as much as in the country's debt figures.
India ranked second at 9.61% ($1.64 billion), a supplier relationship spanning pharmaceuticals, machinery, and textiles. Kuwait took third at 7.79% ($1.33 billion), likely reflecting Gulf fuel supply, since Kuwait's economy is built almost entirely around oil exports. Combined, those three suppliers made up 50.07% of total import value in 2023, meaning exactly half of everything Ethiopia buys from abroad traces back to just three countries, an unusually concentrated top three for an economy of Ethiopia's size and population.
Saudi Arabia added 6.62% ($1.13 billion), another Gulf fuel supplier, and the United States contributed 6.34% ($1.08 billion). Morocco took 3.97% ($676.62 million), and Turkey added 3.64% ($619.98 million). United Arab Emirates contributed 2.77% ($471.92 million), Egypt added 2.67% ($454.68 million), and Japan closed out the top ten at 2.24% ($381.94 million).
Fuel Leads, but Fertilizer Tells a Story About Feeding a Nation
Mineral fuels led every import category, worth $2.65 billion, or 15.55% of the total, unsurprising for a country with no domestic oil production of its own. Machinery and mechanical appliances ranked second at 11.31% ($1.93 billion), reflecting the scale of infrastructure and industrial-park construction underway across the country. Electrical machinery added 7.77% ($1.33 billion), and vehicles contributed 7.71% ($1.31 billion), since Ethiopia has no domestic car assembly industry of its own.
Fertilizers ranked fifth at 7.02% ($1.20 billion), a striking figure for a country whose own agricultural exports, coffee, oilseeds, and vegetables, depend on healthy soil. Morocco's OCP Group is the world's largest phosphate exporter and holds nearly 58% of the African fertilizer market, which lines up closely with Morocco's position among Ethiopia's top ten suppliers. Plastics took 4.88% ($832.53 million), and animal, vegetable, and microbial fats and oils, largely edible cooking oil, added 4.40% ($749.55 million), a food-security category for a country that doesn't produce enough vegetable oil to meet its own needs.
Pharmaceutical products contributed 3.97% ($676.70 million), a category shaped by Ethiopia's still-developing domestic drug manufacturing base. Iron and steel added 3.95% ($672.74 million), both tied to the same construction and industrial buildout driving machinery imports higher up this list. Cereals closed out the top ten at 3.38% ($576.04 million), likely wheat, adding another layer to Ethiopia's food-import bill alongside cooking oil. It's a reminder that even a country known globally for exporting agricultural products still has to import specific staples it can't grow enough of on its own.
A Steady Climb Even as Exports Pulled Back
Ethiopia's import total moved through a familiar pandemic-era pattern before settling into steady growth. It stood at $15.53 billion in 2019, then fell to $14.09 billion in 2020 as the pandemic disrupted global trade. It rebounded to $15.28 billion in 2021, climbed to $16.54 billion in 2022, and reached $17.05 billion in 2023, up 3.10% year over year and a new high across this five-year window.
That steady import growth stands in contrast to the 7.31% export decline covered on Ethiopia's export page, meaning the gap between what the country buys and sells abroad widened further in 2023. With an import total running roughly six times the export figure, Ethiopia's trade deficit depends heavily on foreign aid, remittances, and debt financing, much of it from China specifically, to bridge that widening gap year after year.
That imbalance shapes far more than a line item in a trade report. Machinery, fertilizer, and fuel this central to an import bill are also central to daily economic function. They determine whether farms get planted on schedule, whether construction projects stay funded, and whether the country's own export engine, coffee and the agricultural sector built around it, has what it needs to keep functioning. A widening gap between imports and exports eventually shows up as pressure on the currency and on the government's ongoing ability to keep financing that gap on favorable terms going forward, year after year.