AI overview
"Bir" is the currency used in Ethiopia for buying and selling goods and services. It matters because it's the official money that Ethiopians use in their daily economic transactions and that the country's government manages to control the economy.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Article
The birr (Amharic: ብር) is the primary unit of currency in Ethiopia. It is subdivided into 100 santims.
In 1931, Emperor Haile Selassie formally requested that the international community use the name Ethiopia (as it had already been known internally for at least 1,600 years) instead of the exonym Abyssinia, and the issuing Bank of Abyssinia also became the Bank of Ethiopia. Thus, the pre-1931 currency may be referred to as the Abyssinian birr and the post-1931 currency the Ethiopian birr, although neither the country nor the currency changed beyond the name.