Rail Infrastructure in Africa

Africa is benefitting from the influx of large international industries with manufacturing facilities, mostly from Asia, which are bringing in capital to implement rail expansion and undertake rail rejuvenation projects. Rail projects require massive investments and this is a challenge in Africa due to the low traffic volumes on the railways. Very few of the railways generate sufficient cash flow to finance significant investment.

Bloomberg reports that China Railway Construction Corp., Vale SA, the world’s second-largest miner, and other companies are pumping at least $35 billion into rail projects over the next five years to transport copper and coal out of Africa and into the power plants of China and India. “China needs to get the commodities to the sea as quickly as possible and that means rail,” said Peter Copley, a transport specialist at the Development Bank of Southern Africa.

China’s state-owned Sinohydro Corp. is restoring the 1,344- kilometer Benguela railway linking the cobalt reserves in the southern Democratic Republic of Congo and copper mines in Zambia to Angola’s Lobito port, 243 miles south of Luanda, the capital. In addition Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. may build rail lines to transport ore from its $2 billion Tenke project in Congo, possibly connecting with the Benguela line.

The US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) aims to develop this area by supporting infrastructure feasibility studies as well as projects in developing countries. The USTDA has launched a ‘Southern Africa regional rail initiative’, which it says will focus on modernising and unifying rail infrastructure throughout the region. Intra-Africa trade will be promoted through these programmes according to Paul Martin the Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Director Paul Marin.

In Central Africa, regional integration is underway through the involvement of the six Monetary and Economic Community of Central Africa (CEMAC) countries. The member states have launched an extensive program of renovation and construction of road and rail infrastructure in Cameroon, Chad and Central African Republic.

The USTDA, with special support from the US government, is also supporting the Dar es Salaam-to-Isaka railway link feasibility study, in Tanzania, which could eventually be extended into Rwanda and provide that land-locked country access to a major international seaport. “We also have a rail-integration project in West Africa, where the intention is to link Bamako to Mali’s south-eastern border with Côte d’Ivoire,” Marin reported. This line could create a new interconnection between Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Côte d’Ivoire and unlock an integrated West Africa rail network, with increased access to Atlantic ports for exporters from the region’s landlocked economies.