Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"Remarkably for a landlocked country with the lowest road density in Subsaharan Africa, Ethiopia has become a major exporter of shoes and clothing in addition to its traditional export base of livestock and coffee. Ethiopia relies extensively on Djibouti’s port complex since it fought an unsuccessful war to keep neighboring Eritrea from breaking away in 1993 (it has longstanding political tensions with its other neighbor, Somalia). Adis Abeba since 2015 has been connected to Djibouti by an upgraded rail link, financed and built by China. By rail, goods can now be transported from Adis to Djibouti in 10 hours versus two days via road. Both countries are benefiting from increased trade, and Djibouti has geopolitical ambitions to become the African Horn’s main trading hub. Ethiopia has experienced phenomenal economic growth (annualized near 10 percent for a decade). The economy is overseen by an authoritarian regime that restricts press freedom, but a generation of returnees and strong financial backing from China has produced greater economic diversification and the rise of a major shoe and garment export manufacturing sector. Ethiopia now is a state that combines economic development and authoritarianism as it emerges from its past communist ties of the 1960s and early 1970s." [Geography: Realms, Regions, and Concepts, 17th Edition, p. 310]