Ahead of the summit, three Golden Dragon PIVOTE12 electric buses travelled roughly 800 km south from Addis Ababa to Moyale, a border town between Ethiopia and Kenya. There they met an electric-bus relay team travelling north from Nairobi and ferried the group back to Addis Ababa on 13 September — a round trip of around 1,600 kilometres. The cross-border shuttle mission put the vehicles' real-world range, durability and adaptability to demanding road conditions to the test. It also helped establish a tangible East African electric-mobility corridor, drawing widespread attention as a landmark green-transport demonstration ahead of the main summit.

 

Scaling Electric Mobility: Golden Dragon Solutions Address Africa's Core Green-Transport Challenges
 

Co-hosted with Ethiopia's Ministry of Transport and Logistics, the summit counts the African Union Commission, the Addis Ababa Mayor's Office and the Ethiopian Investment Commission among its strategic institutional partners. It receives diplomatic backing from the embassies of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden in Ethiopia, alongside participation from bodies including the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and Ethiopian Electric Utility.

Launched in Oslo, Norway, in May 2025, the event relocated to Addis Ababa for its September session. It brought together government representatives, power-utility executives, fleet operators, financiers and technology firms to advance Africa's electric-mobility agenda from pilot projects toward large-scale commercial roll-out.

 

Discussions centred on four key themes: charging infrastructure and grid integration, cross-border regulatory alignment, transition financing, and battery circular-economy solutions. A fundamental question ran through the debates: how to build stable, low-carbon transport systems in regions constrained by limited grid capacity.

 

Addis Ababa was a deliberate choice of venue. Ethiopia is the world's first country to ban imports of internal-combustion-engine vehicles, a policy driven largely by the goal of cutting foreign-currency spending on fossil-fuel imports. Electric fleets deliver substantial operational-cost savings for operators while easing national foreign-exchange pressures. As the summit's official shuttle fleet, Golden Dragon's electric buses offered a powerful real-world illustration of this policy vision.

 

Local Assembly and Workforce Development: Golden Dragon Builds a Model for Joint Industrial Growth in Ethiopia
 

Alemu Sime, Minister of Transport and Logistics of Ethiopia, said in his opening address that Africa's electric-vehicle transition ought to act as an engine for industrial development, rather than simply creating another market for imported finished goods. He called for expanded local assembly and manufacturing capacity, plus greater investment in vocational training to cultivate a skilled industry workforce — priorities that align closely with Golden Dragon's long-term strategy in Ethiopia.

Golden Dragon began its partnership with local enterprise Belayneh Kindie Group (BKG) in 2014, with BKG also serving as an industry partner for this summit. Responding to the Ethiopian government's call for technology transfer, Golden Dragon rolled out its local-production initiative in 2019.

 

The jointly built 7-hectare manufacturing plant was completed in 2023. Serial knock-down (KD) production of battery-electric buses commenced in 2024, marking East Africa's first new-energy KD manufacturing project and generating 200 skilled technical jobs. In April 2025, 100 locally assembled 12-metre electric buses were delivered in Addis Ababa, launching East Africa's first large-scale electric-bus fleet operation. By 2025, approximately 900 new-energy Golden Dragon buses were in service across Ethiopia.

Evolving beyond pure product exports and vehicle supply, Golden Dragon has grown into a collaborative industrial partner supporting local manufacturing, technology transfer, skills development and green-transport operations. Its shuttle-bus deployment for the Nordic-Africa EV Summit both demonstrates the performance and operational maturity of its electric-bus portfolio and stands as another milestone in its ongoing commitment to Africa's sustainable-transport transformation.

 

Looking ahead, building on its Ethiopian foothold and working alongside partners such as BKG, Golden Dragon will keep deepening local manufacturing capabilities, technical cooperation, talent-development programmes and after-sales support networks. It will help more African nations achieve scaled-up electric mobility, bringing Chinese-enterprise expertise to support Africa's pursuit of an independent, eco-friendly and sustainable transport future.