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Meetings

• Personal connections are key to business in Ethiopia, so be prepared for a social start to business interactions. Ensure you take the time ​​and build rapport before discussing business specifics. Although time-consuming, these preliminary social discussions are important to foster trust and rapport and can be crucial in determining your Ethiopian counterpart's willingness to do business with you.
• In Ethiopia, initial business encounters often take place at coffee shops. This relaxed environment allows individuals to introduce themselves and assess the other parties' business interests. If initial discussion suggests that the business relationship is worth pursuing, further meetings tend to move to a formal office setting.
• Coffee may be served at the beginning of a meeting. See Etiquette for Ethiopian customs surrounding drinking coffee.
• Stand to greet everyone and address them by their formal title.
• Present your business card with the right hand or both hands together, not the left hand alone. Do not fold someone’s business card if they give it to you.
• There may not be a set time when the meeting is expected to end. Therefore, it is best not to make plans immediately afterwards in case the engagement goes for longer than you expected.
• Meetings generally end once everyone feels that they have exhausted everything they had to say, or when the most senior or eldest person decides there is nothing left to discuss.

Considerations

• Be wary of hasty verbal contracts. Agreements should normally be carefully thought through and officiated in writing.
• Foreign connections are generally viewed positively within Ethiopia, as they are often associated with aid and continued investment.
• Ethiopians often resist giving open criticism or negative opinions on something. For example, instead of directly notifying their supervisor that they are having a problem with a colleague, they may tell other people so it becomes known indirectly. Generally, people feel more comfortable expressing opinions about technical matters rather than personal sentiments.
• Ethiopians may struggle to decline requests and may avoid giving a flat refusal to those that they consider friends. If you receive a non-committal answer, it is best to interpret it as a negative response (see Communication).
• Consider that Ethiopians may feel obliged to perform favours for friends due to their close relationship.
• Ethiopia has a strong anti-corruption legal framework. Nonetheless, corrupt transactions remain prevalent, particularly within bureaucratic processes. These often involve payments and bribes for processing documents, maintaining state-leased land, and securing government contracts.¹ Despite the widespread nature of corruption within the civil sector, Ethiopia still experiences lower levels of corruption compared to many of its neighbouring African countries.
• The 2023 Corruption Perception Index ranked Ethiopia 98 out of 180 countries, receiving a score of 37/100.² This metric suggests that the country’s public sector is somewhat corrupt.