and leaders, where Empress Tayitu owned the first hotel in Addis Ababa. Emperor Haile Selassie, and later Ras Tafari Makonnen, and Ras Hailu Tekla Haymanot, son of King Adal, also owned multiple businesses and companies. Customs represented an important source of revenue for the state treasury, especially the customs of Harar, through which most imports arrived.

The three European powers worked to attract trade towards the Red Sea. France, on its part, focused on the port of Djibouti, its colony, to facilitate trade. Britain worked to attract trade towards its commercial station in Gambela, and Italy did the same for its colony in Eritrea. France and Italy established consulates for this purpose. Italy had three consulates in Adwa, Dessie, and Gondar, and Britain had four in Harar in the east, Gura in the west, and Dangila and Mega in the south. Coffee was the most important export commodity, while textiles were the most important import commodity.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the British desire to operate and succeed with the new Port Sudan, and their encouragement of Abyssinia to use it by exempting its goods from taxes and customs duties in 1909, contributed to this. In the same year, the proportion of cross-border trade through Sudan of the total Abyssinian trade reached 0. And the trade balance favored Abyssinia thanks to the coffee commodity. The border settlement in the Qallabat region also led to the division of trade revenue between the two countries.

Later, after Karmak, a new customs point for border trade was opened, "Basenda," north of the Rahad River. Thus, there were four trade stations between the two countries: Qallabat, Basenda, Karmak, and Gambela. These border stations played a significant role in trade between the two countries. They became the main border trade for Sudan, in addition to two other stations: Kassala (with Eritrea) and Mongalla (with the Congo). Sudan's trade with Abyssinia through these stations developed. While Sudan's imports in 1919 were valued at 260,000 Egyptian pounds, they doubled to 956,000 Egyptian pounds in 1932. The main export commodities included: corn, millet, cotton materials, salt, empty sacks, and sugar, while imports included: coffee, beeswax, and hides.