Tanzania, Angola to link ocean transport corridors by rail

Tanzania and Angola have agreed to connect their Indian Ocean and Atlantic Ocean transport corridors with a railway link via Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan said.

The Benguela railway in Angola will join the Tanzania-Zambia Railway line to Tanzania's port of Dar es Salaam, linking the Lobito corridor on the Atlantic coast with the central corridor on the Indian Ocean coast.

Hassan gave no date for completion of the initiative in comments to reporters on Thursday.

In 2025, China signed a $1.4-billion pact with Zambia and Tanzania to modernise the TAZARA railway, which it had financed in the 1970s to facilitate copper exports and fuel imports.

Counterweight

This week Italian construction firm Webuild said it had won a tender to build a section of the Zambia Lobito Railway Corridor.

TAZARA has been widely seen as a counterweight to the US and EU-backed Lobito Corridor, a route from Angola through Zambia to the DRC.

Angola has also invited Tanzania to invest in an oil refinery, with state energy firm Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation assessing the viability of a partnership in the Lobito oil refinery project, Hassan said.

Tanzania has not said whether it will take up an equity stake in a refinery being built in Kenya by Nigerian businessman Aliko Dangote.

East African governments have been offered a 30% stake and Rwanda and Kenya have so far committed to buying shares. Tanzania and Uganda are discussing plans to jointly build another refinery in Tanzania's port of Tanga.