Dagmawit Tsehaye and Samson Tadesse

The Addis Ababa City Administration has issued a regulation to organize informal street vending. Following the issuance of the regulation, the operating hours for these businesses have been divided into five shifts and made public.

According to the regulation:

- From 5:00 AM to 7:00 AM, the trade of vegetables, fruits, clothing, and accessories will take place.

- From 7:00 AM to 9:00 AM, light breakfast items such as biscuits, tea, coffee, bottled water, and soft drinks will be sold. Shoe shining or laundry services will also be provided during this time.

- From 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM, the trade of books, magazines, and newspapers is permitted.

- From 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM, light snacks like cakes, biscuits, tea, coffee, bottled water, and soft drinks will be sold.

- From 5:00 PM to 8:30 PM, roasted foods, juices, biscuits, cakes, tea, coffee, bottled water, soft drinks, clothing, accessories, small electronic gadgets, and beauty cosmetics will be sold.

The city administration has stated that the locations where these businesses will operate will be designated in the future.

Informal street vending is known to encourage contraband, contribute to traffic congestion and accidents, and negatively impact legal businesses. Efforts to regulate it have been ongoing. 

To understand how the city administration’s current proposal addresses these longstanding issues, we posed questions to Mr. Fiseha Tibebu, Deputy Head of the Addis Ababa City Administration Trade Bureau.

According to Mr. Fiseha, the products sold in informal trade, particularly clothing and shoes, are intended to be sourced from domestic manufacturing industries. 

When asked what guarantees exist to prevent contraband clothing and shoes from entering this trade system, Mr. Fiseha provided the following response: 

Another negative aspect often mentioned about informal trade is its impact on formal businesses. It is criticized for undermining the competitiveness of licensed traders who pay taxes.