Data trends
Foreign factories fuel growth in outbound trade, but are accused of circumventing duties
June 10 2026
Solar photovoltaic cell exports from Ethiopia have surged from nothing in early 2025 to its fourth-largest export commodity so far in 2026. But this has led to accusations that the east African country is being used to bypass US tariffs on Chinese-made solar components.
Between January and May 2026, Ethiopia exported $99.2mn worth of PV cells, a 10-fold increase on the $9.8mn sold in the same period of 2025, according to Ethiopia Revenue & Customs Service statistics via Trade Data Monitor. These solar cells were the only non-agricultural product in Ethiopia’s top ten exports by value, aligning with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s ambition to industrialise the country.
However, eight US solar-panel makers asked the US Department of Commerce on May 12 to investigate whether Ethiopia was being used as an export platform to circumvent anti-dumping and countervailing duty orders of solar products. The Department had 30 days to initiate an investigation, but on June 4 gave itself an additional 30 days for this process.
The group alleges that Origin Solar Manufacturing, owned by Singapore-based Zeto Holding, and Japan’s Toyo Solar are routing Chinese wafers and components through “minimal Ethiopian solar manufacturing operations” before shipping finished cells and modules to the US. They claim that nearly 70 per cent of the finished products bound to the US include components and processing that are subject to existing tariffs.
Chinese exports of silicon wafers to Ethiopia surged to $30.8mn in 2025 from nothing previously, according to China Customs data. Solar cell exports to Ethiopia also jumped to $93.6mn in 2025, up from $1.2mn in the three previous years combined.
Tim Brightbill, a partner with Wiley Rein and lead attorney for the US solar manufacturers group, tells fDi that Ethiopia is “the latest representation” of AD/CVD orders evasion. These orders were first launched in December 2012 against Chinese manufacturers of solar PV cells.
“These operations typically still rely overwhelmingly on materials from China which are then subjected to minor finishing steps abroad to claim an alternative country of origin,” he says, noting this is illegal under US trade law. Other countries accused of US tariff evasion on solar products include Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, Laos and India.
Rhone Resch, Toyo Solar
Rhone Resch, chief strategy officer of Toyo Solar, concedes the company is producing in Ethiopia to serve the US market, but “the accusations that are made are not based on fact”, he tells fDi. “They’re looking at some export and import numbers and they automatically assume that companies must be cheating.” 
“All of our polysilicon is non-Chinese . . . all of our wafers are then processed in south-east Asia . . . all of the processing of the cell occurs at our Ethiopian plant,” Resch tells fDi, noting that Toyo sources its polysilicon from the US and Korean chemical company OCI in Malaysia.
China holds around 85 per cent of global solar supply chain production capacity, according to the IEA. It dominates the multistage process, starting with polysilicon that is melted to form ingots, which are sliced into wafers and then processed into solar cells. Cells are ultimately arranged into modules and grouped to form panels used in solar farms.
Jenny Chase, a solar analyst at BloombergNEF, notes that it is not possible for countries like Ethiopia to develop manufacturing capacity without China. “You would need to source manufacturing equipment from China, and probably also encapsulant material and silver paste at least,” she explains, noting China is the best at making the entire supply chain.
The proposed US probe into Ethiopia’s role as a solar export platform underlines challenges for developing countries seeking to attract foreign direct investment to kick-start new high-tech industries.
Ethiopia is attractive to the solar industry due to its cheap renewable power, land and labour, says Henok Assefa, an Addis Ababa-based managing director of Precise, an economic development consultancy.
“The opportunity for a developing country is to gain a foothold, and then the additional value-add comes because [companies] want to be closer to the downstream market-facing side of the manufacturing,” he says.
The US tariff rate on goods of Ethiopian origin is the baseline reciprocal 10 per cent rate, lower than many other countries. Ethiopia signed a market-access agreement with China in July 2025 as part of its accession to the World Trade Organization.
In the US, solar cells and modules from China face a combination of trade barriers in the US, including Section 301 tariffs of 50 per cent and AD/CVD on certain solar imports from China and companies using Chinese components.
Tony Tiyou, CEO of media consultancy Renewables in Africa, says that a potential ruling by the DOC against the Ethiopia-based facilities “effectively signals that Africa cannot serve as a low-cost manufacturing base for solar”. Data from fDi Markets shows that a record eight solar manufacturing projects worth an estimated $1.5bn were announced in Africa in 2025, up from $304mn across four projects the year before.
On June 8, Toyo Solar pledged to invest $357mn into a new solar cell factory co-located with its module facility in Houston, Texas.
1
2
3
4
5
Data trends
Ethiopia
Renewable energy
Supply chains
Latest news and data on US foreign investment as a new era begins
The Asian country’s industrial robotics lead is being exported around the world
On-site electricity generation seeks to overcome grid bottlenecks, but this carries risks
Deals are concentrated domestically in most major economies counter to global race
Make informed decisions, attract investment and stay competitive in the world of foreign and domestic direct investment.

source