Nearly 3.6 million cars have used two Chinese built expressways in the first five months of the current Ethiopian Fiscal Year (EFY) 2020/2021, an Ethiopian official said on Monday.

Speaking to Xinhua, Zahara Mohammed, Communications and Marketing Team Leader at Ethiopian Toll Roads Enterprise (ETRE), said 3,596,852 cars used the 76-km Addis Ababa-Adama toll expressway and the 220-km Dire Dawa-Dewele toll road in the first five months of 2020/2021 EFY, earning more than 4 million U.S. dollars for the country.

Mohammed said the two toll expressways, which are open 24 hours a day, have been fitted with modern technology to cope with rising traffic.

The Addis Ababa-Adama toll expressway, which is regarded as the first expressway in Ethiopia and East Africa, was partly funded by the Export-Import Bank of China and constructed by the China Communications Construction Company. The expressway went operational in September 2014.

The Dire Dawa-Dewele toll road, which was constructed by CGC Overseas Construction (CGC-OC) Group Ltd, went into operation in June 2019.

The Export-Import Bank of China financed 85 percent of the Dire Dawa-Dewele toll road project, while the remaining 15 percent was covered by the Ethiopian government.

The Dire Dawa-Dewele toll road connects landlocked Ethiopia to ports in Djibouti.

Djibouti port handles about 95 percent of landlocked Ethiopia's export-import trade, and the Dire Dawa-Dewele toll road is expected to play a significant role in augmenting Ethiopia's economic growth by facilitating trade. 

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