China Exim Bank Agrees to Lend Tanzania $7.6 Billion for Railway

By Felix Njini *

• Construction seen starting by 2017, Tanzanian government says

Export Import Bank China will lend Tanzania $7.6 billion for a railway that will help the East African nation’s landlocked neighbors including Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda transport goods to its port on the Indian Ocean, a government official said.

Tanzania and Exim Bank China will finalize “technical issues on the contract” and sign the financing deal for the 2,200-kilometer (1,367-mile) project soon, Gerson Msigwa, a spokesman for Tanzania’s presidency, said Wednesday by phone from the capital, Dodoma. The standard gauge line will become a major trade artery between Tanzania and its landlocked neighbors, he said.

Tanzania is a “reliable borrower” and the railway line to the commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, will lift the economies of other countries in the region, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, President John Magufuli said in an e-mailed statement. Construction may begin this financial year, he said.