More companies are shifting part of their production lines to the African nation to save money and also tap new markets, Yao Jing reports

China's active involvement in Ethiopia's infrastructure, such as construction of roads and bridges, has been in the spotlight. Recently, Chinese investors' rising interest in the plateau country's labor intensive industries - a mixture of leather, steel and automobiles - is coming into sharper focus.

Against a background of rising labor costs and risky excess capacity in the domestic manufacturing sector, some Chinese producers are shifting part of their production lines to Ethiopia to lower costs and also tap new markets.