As Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed arrives in Beijing for the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which starts on September 3, 2018, China’s mission to the African Union in Addis Ababa said on its website in July that “The intensifying repayment risks from the Ethiopian government’s debt reaching 59 percent of GDP is worrying investors.” Also in July, Zhao Lei, a Professor at the Central Party School in Beijing, wrote in the party-run Guangming Daily in June, that “The sustainability of the projects is weak.” Tang Xiaoyang, a Professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing who does fieldwork in Ethiopia, said the main section of the railway opened in 2016, but Chinese financing for a northern extension, from Woldia to Mekele, has suffered multiple delays and the full funding package from the Chinese Export and Import Bank has not been released yet. He added that the main concern causing delays is the economic sustainability and feasibility of the project. Yunnan Chen, a researcher at the China Africa Research Initiative at SAIS, said “ExIm has become more risk-averse for new projects”.
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