Ethiopia has decided to handle the production of its national currency, the Ethiopian Birr, in an effort to foster its sovereignty, institutional power, economy and its continuous development.
The announcement was made by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed at the Finance Forward Ethiopia 2026 conference. Ethiopian Investment Holdings (EIH) will oversee domestic currency production, signifying a profound strategic shift that will bring the foundational architecture of money, assets, and national wealth under sovereign, public control. This move elevates Ethiopia into a small, strategic group of nations that print their own legal tender, a decisive step taken concurrently with the country’s radical reorganisation of state asset ownership and governance to directly harness them for national development.
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For years, Ethiopia, like many African nations, has relied on foreign firms to print its currency, a vulnerability that exposes it to supply chain risks, geopolitical pressure, and a drain on its foreign exchange reserves, while limiting its control over the security of its money. This dependency is especially critical as the Ethiopian Birr faces severe strain from recent reforms and sharp depreciation, making the localisation of currency production a strategic necessity not a symbolic gesture to reduce external reliance, regain control over monetary supply and security features, lower long-term costs, and shield the currency from external leverage, thereby serving as a foundational step in rebuilding institutional trust in the national currency.
The strategic choice to place domestic currency production under Ethiopian Investment Holdings (EIH) is deliberate, as EIH established in December 2021 as the nation’s sovereign investment arm was specifically created to address the systemic issue of poor governance and underperformance in Ethiopia’s sprawling state-owned sector by consolidating over 40 major public commercial assets, including Ethiopian Airlines, Ethio Telecom, and the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, under a modern, transparent corporate framework to maximise their value for national development.
With assets under management valued at approximately $140–150 billion, Ethiopian Investment Holdings (EIH) manages a portfolio of over 40 state-owned enterprises across key sectors, having driven a dramatic revenue surge from 704 billion to 6.1 trillion birr in four years and achieving a pre-tax profit of 262.7 billion birr in FY 2024/25, backed by substantial foreign exchange reserves of $48.7 billion and employing around 250,000 people, which currently contributes roughly 12% to Ethiopia’s GDP with a strategic target of reaching 20% by 2030.
If achieved, that 20% target would place EIH among the most economically influential sovereign investment institutions globally, not just in Africa.
Ethiopia’s significant macroeconomic scale, with a nominal GDP between $109–121 billion in 2025, a robust growth rate of 6.5–7.5% driven by its services, industrial, and agricultural sectors, and a population exceeding 120 million, provides the critical mass that makes the substantial initial investment in domestic currency production economically justifiable, as the high fixed costs can be amortized across the vast volume of currency required for such a large economy, thereby reducing the per-unit cost over time compared to the ongoing expense of outsourcing production to foreign firms.
Within Africa, the capacity to print currency is a rare sovereign capability, with only 9–12 nations, including Nigeria and South Africa, possessing it. The majority of the continent’s 54 countries remain dependent on printing firms in Europe, a lingering post-colonial financial reliance that Ethiopia’s new initiative now deliberately breaks from.
This move is part of a fundamental institutional transformation within Ethiopia, spearheaded by the strategic sovereign fund, Ethiopian Investment Holdings (EIH). EIH was created to reform a landscape of fragmented, inefficient state-owned enterprises by imposing modern corporate governance and commercial discipline, making currency printing a logical extension of its mandate to build strategic, durable national assets.
The currency effort is strategically supported by a trio of complementary infrastructure projects: existing security printing expertise via a joint venture for passports, a new domestic gold refinery to preserve national wealth, and the development of domestic capital markets through the Ethiopian Securities Exchange. This integrated approach aims to build a more self-reliant and robust financial architecture.
Ultimately, localising currency production is a profound statement of sovereignty, signalling Ethiopia’s intent to mature its state capacity and manage national wealth over the long term. While challenges like high capital costs and execution risks remain, successfully controlling the creation of money is a foundational step toward greater economic self-determination, representing the real, strategic value beyond the banknotes themselves.
