China to upgrade the 1,860-kilometer Tanzania-Zambia railway

On the sidelines of the China-Africa Summit in Beijing on Wednesday, September 4, 2024, China, Tanzania, and Zambia signed a memorandum of understanding to rehabilitate the 1,860-kilometer, single track Tanzania-Zambia railway, which was originally built by China in 1975. The Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) is co-owned by the Tanzanian and Zambian governments. TAZARA allowed landlocked Zambia to bypass white settler states Rhodesia (current Zimbabwe) and South Africa by giving the copper mines in Kapiri Mposhi access to the Port of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Zambia currently exports its copper through South Africa’s Port of Durban. In February, China offered to spend $1 billion to upgrade TAZARA through a public-private partnership. China’s interest in the infrastructure in central and eastern Africa is doubtless in response to the Lobito Corridor railway project that will give the United States and Europe access to the copper of Zambia and the cobalt of the Democratic Republic of Congo via a railway that runs from Zambia through the DRC to Lobito Port, Angola. China is heavily invested in Congolese cobalt and Zambian copper to support its electric vehicle industry. Last fall, multinational commodities company Trafigura announced it was part of a 30-year concession to operate the 1,300-kilometer Lobito railway. By the same token, the World Bank approved $270 million in financing to improve the infrastructure between Zambia and Tanzania to extend the Lobito Corridor from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean. For its part, Tanzania wants to turn the Port of Dar es Salaam into an export hub for the mineral riches of its landlocked neighbors by extending its railway system throughout the region. #tanzania #zambia