The Ethiopian Railways Corporation (ERC) earned more than 110 million Br from transportation services for the 30 million people who use Addis Abeba Light Rail Transit.
However, the amount of money collected was said to have been far lower than the expenditure of the Corporation, owing to the low fares that aimed to serve the needs of the wider range of the population.
Due to this fact, the Corporation is currently functioning using a subsidy it receives from the government. It has now acquired working spaces from the city administration, to set up shops around the train stations and raise revenues.
The Corporation has also started paying back the long-term loan granted for the construction of the railway. The city’s light railway commenced its services three years ago with 85pc of the construction expenditure covered by Export-Import (EX-IM) Bank of China, while the Ethiopian government covered the rest.