Abiy Ahmed Says Eritrea’s Ports and Cities Lost Economic Activity

What changed

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has sharply recast Eritrea’s post-independence story, saying a country once associated with the promise of “Africa’s Singapore” has watched its industrial base and cities decline since independence in 1993.

In a televised Tigrigna-language interview, Abiy said Eritrea had more than 300 industries when it was part of Ethiopia. He described Massawa as largely emptied of its former activity and Assab as a ghost town, despite their Red Sea location and former economic importance.

Why it matters

Eritrea’s problem, in this telling, is not a lack of assets. It is the failure to turn those assets into working institutions, businesses and livelihoods.

Massawa and Assab could have served as centres of trade, logistics, investment and employment. Asmara could have continued growing as a commercial, service and industrial hub. Instead, industrial activity has deteriorated while the ports and cities have struggled to convert geography into prosperity.

The human cost is tied to the same system. Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2026 records indefinite national service and no national elections since independence. That leaves young Eritreans unable to plan ordinary working lives, build businesses or develop skills on their own terms. Many leave, draining the country of people it needs to rebuild its economy.

The comparison with Singapore is therefore less about copying a foreign model than exposing Eritrea’s missed choices. Trade infrastructure can sit beside a major sea route and still remain economically inert. Industrial history can exist on paper while cities lose their purpose. Without productive investment, effective institutions and room for people to work freely, strategic advantages do not automatically become national wealth.

The scale of Eritrea’s unrealized potential is clear. But current port, industrial, employment and migration figures were not provided, and the historical count of more than 300 industries may not be directly comparable with today’s definitions.