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Addis Ababa (AMECO)<\/em> – Ethiopia\u2019s lack of maritime access is placing a severe burden on its economic development, costing the nation over $3bn (\u00a32.3bn) annually in port fees and driving Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed\u2019s diplomatic push for direct sea access, according to a study by scholars at Addis Ababa University.<\/strong><\/p>\n The research highlights that the country\u2019s total port expenditure reached an estimated $27bn between 2008 and 2024\u2014a figure equivalent to funding the $5bn Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) nearly six times over. In 2015 alone, port rental payments, paid primarily to neighbouring Djibouti, consumed a quarter of Ethiopia’s total national budget.<\/p>\n According to the study, paying an average of $1.5bn annually in transit fees acts as a “geography tax” that stymies growth by diverting critical funds away from public infrastructure, healthcare, and education. The researchers note that administrative delays, high insurance premiums, and transit bottlenecks further compound these structural obstacles for the Horn of Africa\u2019s most populous nation.<\/p>\n Beyond the immediate financial toll, the study warns that reliance on foreign ports creates major security and geopolitical vulnerabilities, leaving Ethiopia exposed to regional instability and dependent on the goodwill of its neighbours. The report attributes the current predicament to political decisions in the early 1990s that effectively severed the country’s direct access to the sea, trading strategic maritime access for commercial port dependency.<\/p>\n Addressing the issue, Prime Minster Abiy has repeatedly described sea access as an “existential matter” for Ethiopia’s population of more than 130 million. Rejecting assertions that the drive stems from military ambition, the prime minister insisted the demand represents a legitimate requirement for economic survival.<\/p>\n “We cannot live in a geographical prison,”<\/strong><\/em> Abiy said. “We must solve our thirst for sea access through mutual benefit and peaceful negotiation.”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Addis Ababa (AMECO) – Ethiopia\u2019s lack of maritime access is placing a severe burden on its economic development, costing the nation over $3bn (\u00a32.3bn) annually in port fees and driving Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed\u2019s diplomatic push for direct sea access, according to a study by scholars at Addis Ababa University. The research highlights that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2445,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,7],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[1002,918,590,76,1572,91,85,734],"class_list":["post-2443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-magazines","category-world-wide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameco.et\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameco.et\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameco.et\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameco.et\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameco.et\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2443"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameco.et\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2446,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameco.et\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2443\/revisions\/2446"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameco.et\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameco.et\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameco.et\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameco.et\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2443"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameco.et\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}