Ethiopia's stock market is lining up a bigger menu. The Ethiopian Securities Exchange has granted in-principle approval to 11 companies to pursue listings, and if every one crosses the finish line, the number of traded firms would jump to nearly three times the current total. While in Nairobi for the Sustainable Capital Markets Conference, CEO Yodit Kassa said the first of the group operates in financial services and will begin trading next week, though she declined to name it. "If all goes well, early January we should see at least six of them coming to the market," she said.
Right now ESX has six listings: state-owned Ethio Telecom S.C., along with Abay Bank S.C., Awash Bank S.C., Bank of Abyssinia S.C., Gadaa Bank S.C. and Wegagen Bank S.C. The exchange launched in January 2025 to pull investment into an economy that had long been mostly shut to foreign capital. It also works with 22 licensed intermediaries, seven of which are investment banks. Ethio Telecom was the first to roll out an IPO, and it is drawing strong interest from Ethiopians abroad after the diaspora previously could not participate because the offer was only open to investors inside Ethiopia, according to Kassa.
ESX put its money-market operations in place three months before the first stocks changed hands. Over the last 18 months, about $23 billion has moved through the interbank market. The bourse also lists 48 treasury bills, though no secondary trading has happened yet. "We are able to see opportunities around the debt market, which is not what exchanges focus on," Kassa said, adding, "We still have more to do because we haven't seen activity on the secondary market for T-bills."
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If even a chunk of these approvals turn into live tickers, local investors get more choice and a more active market. Keep tabs on which names actually list and whether T-bills start trading in the secondary market. Those two milestones will tell you how quickly Ethiopia's market is maturing and what kinds of assets might open up next.
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