Hey crew, here’s to another week of cutting through the noise and focusing on what actually moves financial minds forward.

No buzzwords, just the stuff affecting wallets, business & the economy:

⛩️ Tipping: “Not Just A City in China”

▶️ Ethiopia Presses Play: Is It Finally Working?

Here’s to the 126th weekly edition

Let’s dive in.

One aspect of daily expenses that seems to go overlooked is tipping.

You know the 20 or 30 Birr you leave after an exquisite macchiato.

Or the 50 that you throw to the parkingologist at night when he gives you the odd look.

Now even the cash notes are turning into electronic notifications. You start tipping with digital wallets or directly from your banking app.

Tap and the money leaves your account. 

Justified? Well that’s up to you to decide.

Now tipping is considered immoral in some cultures. The Japanese are known for their stance on anti-tipping.

They expect their establishments to give good services regardless so extra moolah is uncalled for.

Still, Ethiopia is not Japan and tipping is becoming a noticeable expense line item on everyone’s income statement.

Let’s assume that you’re a person of convenience and you regularly use services to make your life easier.

You wake up in the morning on a brand new day, ready to tackle what’s in front of you. You call a Yango (Apparently RIDE is old school for all the cool kids these days)

You get to work, settle your bill and add a bit extra to the driver because you guys connected on EDM music (why not…). ETB 30 tipped.

Then you get comfortable in your ergonomic office chair, get in work mode until you crave a smoothie from the cafe downstairs. ETB 25 tipped.

Lunch comes around, የፍረደት stomach is growling.

You fulfill its needs by opening the Deliver Addis app because you can only eat at your desk as the day is super hectic to go out and splurge. ETB 50 tipped.

We’re at ETB 105 already and it’s just half day.

At 2pm, you receive the package that you have ordered, a special home made honey that you used a ሞተረኛ service for to get it to your place of work.

ETB 30 tipped.

An hour before quitting time, you realize that your part time meal prepper’s salary is due. She comes in twice a week and cooks the essentials for you.

The holidays are around the corner, you have to account for that. 

Salary + ETB 200 tipped.

The day is over, a quick socializing with your high school friends because you made a promise.

You have dinner. You pay your share. Tip contribution: ETB 35.

Now, time to go home, where your journey started.

Yango again.

40 minute drive because the restaurant you picked was further out than you expected. ETB 50 tipped.

Summary of the daily tipping expense: ETB 420. Jeez!

To top it all of, if you’ve done your tipping on a digital app like Telebirr, you probably were hit with what might seem like a insignificant amount of transaction fee of around ETB 1 to 6 each time.

So let’s give it a nice, round ETB 450 for all intents and purposes.

Tipping adds up.

From ride hailing drivers to your regular smoothie seller, we tip for services rendered.

Tipping is typically subjective but many are considering it a norm so we end up adhering to social pressure and give in. So…should we?

After all, a ETB 450 tipping bill on an above average day is quite considerable, on a 5 day stretch with a modest ETB 200 tipping daily rate that’s ETB 1000 per week or ETB 4000 per month.

Relative to your spending, call it a convenience fee or social etiquette, it might creep up on you and add more burden to your finances.

Enough to ask for a telebirr number to tip in your sleep 🫩

For years, Ethiopia’s economic story has felt like two steps forward, one step back.

There was rapid growth, followed by conflict.

Big infrastructure ambitions were followed by foreign-exchange shortages.

Businesses expanded, only to find themselves unable to import machinery or raw materials. Inflation eroded purchasing power while the government struggled with debt and a shortage of foreign currency.

There is a growing case that Ethiopia’s economy is beginning to turn a corner. Are we experiencing a short-term strong growth or is it actually building a more sustainable economic model.

The evidence is increasingly pointing in the latter direction, although the risks remain substantial.

The IMF expects real GDP growth of about 9.2% in 2025/26. Growth has been supported by stronger agricultural production, gold mining, electricity generation and private investment.

Exports, foreign-exchange reserves and government revenue continued to improve through early 2026. It is important because Ethiopia’s economic problem was never simply a lack of growth but more so a lack of foreign currency.

To address this, Ethiopia moved toward a more market-determined exchange rate, introduced an interest-rate-based monetary policy framework and began removing some of the disincentives that had constrained the foreign-exchange market.

The World Bank says the effects are becoming visible at the firm level. It points to businesses that were previously operating in “survival mode” because they could not reliably obtain foreign currency to import inputs. With improved access to FX, some firms are once again planning investment and expansion.

For an entrepreneur, that is probably more meaningful than a GDP figure.

A business cannot grow simply because the economy grows on paper. It needs to be able to import, obtain working capital and plan its costs with some degree of confidence.

The reform agenda is attempting to move the economy away from administrative allocation toward a system where prices, interest rates, foreign exchange and private investment play a larger role in determining where capital goes.

The transition is uncomfortable. But if it works, it changes the incentives facing businesses.

There is also another signal worth watching: foreign investment.

Dangote is perhaps the most visible example. In 2025, Dangote announced plans to invest around USD 400 million to double its Ethiopian cement annual capacity from 2.5 million ton to 5 million ton. The company has also moved ahead with a much larger fertilizer project in Gode. The planned facility will have an annual capacity of up to 3 million ton of urea, and Dangote increased its announced investment in the project to more than USD 4 billion in 2026.

Dangote has also publicly described Ethiopia as one of its most promising investment destinations due to reliable electricity power supply and said recent reforms helped its Ethiopian operation repatriate dividends.

That is certainly an encouraging signal.

But it would be too early to conclude that one company's investment proves Ethiopia has become a broadly attractive FDI destination. Large investors make decisions based on market size, natural and man-made resources and policy incentives.

The broader FDI numbers therefore matter more than any single project. And here the picture is still mixed. So Dangote is best viewed as a signal, not a verdict.

Security is an even bigger problem that cannot be ignored.

The Tigray war may have ended with the 2022 Pretoria agreement, but security risks have not disappeared. There are renewed tensions in Tigray and continuing conflict in Oromia and Amhara as material economic risks.

The recent incident at the Tulu Kapi gold project illustrates the point painfully.

On September 4, a serious security incident at KEFI's Tulu Kapi project in Oromia resulted in multiple fatalities, including a company employee. KEFI subsequently suspended development activities until safe resumption is guaranteed.

That is a sobering reminder that an investor can be comfortable with a country's economic reforms and still be uncomfortable with its operating environment.

The direction of travel has changed due to policy changes.

Foreign-exchange policy is more market-oriented. Monetary policy has become more rules-based. Exports and reserves have improved. Domestic revenue mobilization has strengthened. Private-sector participation is being encouraged. And companies that once struggled simply to obtain foreign currency are beginning to think about expansion again.

But the next stage is harder.

Ethiopia now has to convert macroeconomic stability into productivity gains, encourage savings and investments; and create skilled job opportunities.