Ethiopia – Djibouti Rail Reaps Record Profits Under Local Management

At the end of fiscal year ending on 7 July 2025 in Ethiopia, Minister of Transport Alemu Sime announced that the Ethiopia – Djibouti Railway (EDR) reaped a total of ETB 7 billion ($50M) during its first 11 months of operation under local management. Previously, the railway line was operated by a Chinese company under the DBOT agreement.

For the FY 2024-2025, it is estimated that the EDR will have transported nearly 200,000 passengers, representing a robust 15% growth over the previous period. In terms of cargo, EDR successfully transported nearly 6 million tonnes of incoming and outgoing freight. However, many challenges remain as the insecurity in the Red Sea perdures.

Internally, EDR has to improve spare parts management, preventive maintenance and office automation. Taking advantage of digitalization, EDR has recently launched an online freight booking system. Initially, the system is dedicated to rail, but has on its roadmap to extend to multimodality in the future as needs arise.

The Ethiopia – Djibouti Railway (EDR) Company was established in April 2017 as a JV between the governments of Ethiopia and Djibouti. It was capitalized with an initial injection of USD 500 million. Train services actually started on the 1st of January 2018. After six years of operation by the Chinese, the management has now been localized after capacity building and knowledge transfer.

At the same time, the Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics (ESL) Company is ramping up its capacity in view of expanding business. It aims to provide seamless multimodal — rail, road, and ship — to customers. I recently acquired 100 new trucks and posted a record ETB 109 billion of revenue for the preceding FY.

Both EDR and ESL are considering to adopt measures to decrease the carbon footprint of transport in the region.