Specialty Coffee & Oilseed Export Trading Company Under Directive 1082/2025

What we checked

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• 3 source reports read and listed below.
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What is driving it

• Directive 1082/2025 opens coffee, oilseed and livestock export licensing to foreign-owned entities, creating a first-mover window before the market matures
• Ethiopia is the world's fifth-largest coffee producer; EU specialty coffee demand continues to grow, and Ethiopian single-origin commands 30-50% premiums over commodity grades
• AfCFTA membership and WTO accession trajectory (bilateral deals with 12 members as of April 2026) will reduce intra-continental tariffs and expand duty-free access corridors

What could go wrong

• Residual forex liquidity risk — despite liberalisation, USD liquidity at commercial banks remains uneven and can delay settlement
• Ethnic-regional tensions (Oromia, Amhara) can periodically disrupt supply chains from key coffee-growing and oilseed regions

Full analysis

Ethiopia is accelerating its economic transformation at pace, recording a record USD 4.32 billion in FDI during the 2025/26 fiscal year — an 8% year-on-year increase — while issuing 528 new investment licences and pushing more than 260 projects into the implementation stage. The macroeconomic reform agenda, anchored by a July 2024 birr float, a USD 3.4 billion IMF Extended Credit Facility, and a market-based FX regime (now further liberalised by FXD/04/2026), has removed the parallel-market premium and unlocked currency repatriation for exporters. Landmark Directive No. 1082/2025 opened wholesale, retail, import, export (including raw coffee and oilseeds) to foreign investors for the first time in decades, and Proclamation No. 1360/2025 admitted foreign equity into the banking sector. WTO accession negotiations reached a 'decisive juncture' in April 2026, with Ethiopia having submitted over 400 pieces of legislation and concluded bilateral talks with 12 members — signalling imminent bound-tariff certainty. On the supply side, the September 2025 inauguration of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (5,150 MW) and a renewable energy market CAGR of 20.9% to 2031 are redefining the country's power economics. The USD 12.5 billion Bishoftu mega-airport and the World Bank's USD 1.4 billion PRIME electrification programme are generating layered procurement pipelines across construction, logistics, and last-mile energy. Risks include residual ethnic-political instability, elevated inflation, and the ongoing sovereign-bond restructuring process.

Directive No. 1082/2025, enacted June 2025, explicitly authorises foreign investors to export raw coffee, oilseeds, and livestock for the first time, removing a multi-decade statutory barrier. Simultaneously, the FXD/04/2026 forex amendment now allows full foreign-currency retention for service and commodity exporters, eliminating the repatriation risk that historically deterred diaspora traders.

Market drivers:

• Directive 1082/2025 opens coffee, oilseed and livestock export licensing to foreign-owned entities, creating a first-mover window before the market matures
• Ethiopia is the world's fifth-largest coffee producer; EU specialty coffee demand continues to grow, and Ethiopian single-origin commands 30-50% premiums over commodity grades
• AfCFTA membership and WTO accession trajectory (bilateral deals with 12 members as of April 2026) will reduce intra-continental tariffs and expand duty-free access corridors

Risks:

• Residual forex liquidity risk — despite liberalisation, USD liquidity at commercial banks remains uneven and can delay settlement
• Ethnic-regional tensions (Oromia, Amhara) can periodically disrupt supply chains from key coffee-growing and oilseed regions

Sources

What the analysis was built on. Some rows hold a headline, some hold the address of the report; both are printed as filed. We do not host the originals.

• www.addisinsight.net/2025/06/13/ethiopia-opens-trade-sectors-to-foreign-investors-new-directive-unlocks-export-import-wholesale-and-retail-markets/
• practiceguides.chambers.com/practice-guides/investing-in-2026/ethiopia/trends-and-developments/O23716
• www.dandreapartners.com/ethiopia-2026-a-new-gateway-for-foreign-direct-investment-in-africa/

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