Zambia, Tanzania, China Agree to Revamp Tazara Rail Line

President Hakainde Hichilema has signed an agreement with his Tanzanian and Chinese counterparts to revamp the TAZARA railway, helping Zambia to export its crucial copper resources via Tanzania, increasing mining revenue and creating jobs throughout the supply chain.

The deal was signed at the Forum on China- Africa Cooperation in Beijing and marks the biggest upgrade to the railway since Chinese Premier Mao Zedong and founding President Kenneth Kaunda first cooperated on the line in the 1970s.

The line links Zambia’s mines on the Copperbelt with Tanzania’s main port of Dar Es Salaam. Increasing capacity and speed could improve exports of copper to China, which is the world’s biggest consumer of the metal.

Tazara’s connection to the Indian ocean neatly complements the US and EU-backed Lobito corridor, which links Zambia to the port of Lobito on Angola’s Atlantic coast. The US has recently announced plans to expand this railway to Tanzania as well.

Global copper demand is expected to grow by 2 million tonnes by 2030. President Hichilema has set out ambitious plans to expand Zambia’s production to 3 million tonnes in the next decade, allowing the country to benefit from the global transition to electrification and green energy.

Earlier this year, China’s ambassador to Zambia officially handed over a proposal to spend more than $1 billion on revitalising Tazara and operate it commercially. Wednesday’s deal is the conclusion of the negotiations that followed.

“These are the people that built the line, that constructed the line” Bruno Ching’andu, chief executive officer at the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority said of the prospective deal in an interview with Bloomberg last month. “They’ve sent several teams to look at the bridges, to look at al the infrastructures along the line. They seem certain as to what is required.”