{"id":883081,"date":"2026-11-06T14:13:54","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T12:13:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=883081"},"modified":"2026-11-06T14:13:57","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T12:13:57","slug":"another-african-country-is-coming-after-south-africas-crown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/883081\/another-african-country-is-coming-after-south-africas-crown\/","title":{"rendered":"Another African country is coming after South Africa’s crown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ethiopia now ranks as Africa\u2019s fifth-biggest economy, after the nation revised its national accounts to take into account emerging sectors such as the digital economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gross domestic product in the fiscal year that ended in July was the equivalent of $210.7 billion, Finance Minister Fitsum Assefa said<\/a> in a post on X. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The economy in the new 2024-25 base year was $201.4 billion, 59% bigger than the previous estimate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ethiopia previously used 2015-16 as its base year, which \u201cno longer captured the economy\u2019s structural transformation, sectoral expansion and emerging activities such as digital finance and services,\u201d Fitsum said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new data will mechanically reduce Ethiopia\u2019s debt-to-GDP metrics, potentially improving headline debt sustainability indicators as the government continues restructuring its loans under the G20 Common Framework, Oxford Economics said in a research note. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A similar rebasing<\/a> in South Africa last week led to a revision of that country\u2019s debt ratios.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHowever, outstanding debt, servicing costs, and foreign-currency financing requirements remain unchanged,\u201d Oxford Economics economist Alexander Venter said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ethiopia\u2019s new data series draws on a recent agriculture census, household surveys and for the first time incorporates data from state-owned enterprises and non-profit institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the new estimates, the services sector\u2014which includes transport and contributions from Africa\u2019s biggest carrier Ethiopian Airlines\u2014accounted for the largest share of the economy at almost 36%, followed by agriculture at 32% and industry at 30%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Africa\u2019s second-most populous country projects economic growth of 10.2% in the current fiscal year, boosted by a series of economic reforms aimed at attracting foreign investment and opening previously restricted sectors to international investors, including telecommunications and banking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two years ago, the authorities allowed a freely floating currency as part of an International Monetary Fund-backed economic reform programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ethiopia has rebased and revised its national accounts, seeing its GDP surge 59%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":724398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2118679548787110260","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2263040804516318","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18133316545837000","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[7101,2720,853],"class_list":["post-883081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-ethiopia","tag-gdp","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=883081"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":883088,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883081\/revisions\/883088"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/724398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=883081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=883081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=883081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}