China to bring Tanzania-Zambia railway back to full speed with US$1 billion boost

Published: October 07,2024

Beijing to refurbish 50-year-old African line as the US and EU bankroll their own rail project in the race for critical minerals

For Beijing, the Tanzania-Zambia railway is “a symbol of China-Africa friendship” – a must-visit stop on any diplomatic tour and China’s largest ever African foreign aid project.

But five decades after it was first built, Tazara, as it is known, has fallen into disrepair and is in the financial doldrums, with only 10 locomotives in used instead of its capacity of 50.

Now Beijing is stepping in, pledging US$1 billion or more to refurbish the ageing railway.

The decision to help save Tazara, however, is being seen as a direct response to the US announcement of its own African railway infrastructure project to bankroll the refurbishment of the Lobito Corridor between Angola and Zambia through the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Observers also say China is keen to get Tazara back to full speed to help transport its mining exports from Zambia and the DRC, as the race for critical minerals used in the production of electric vehicle batteries heats up between China, the European Union and the US.

Tazara has long held a special place for China. Built in the early 1970s, 160 workers, including 69 Chinese nationals, lost their lives during its construction. Even now, visiting Chinese diplomats lay flowers at memorials to those who died.

But the 50-year-old railway line – which runs 1,860km (1,156 miles) from Zambia’s copperbelt town of Kapiri-Mposhi to the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam – needs a serious cash injection.

The deal under discussion would see state-owned China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), a subsidiary of China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC), rehabilitate the railway. CCECC is negotiating a concession to operate the railway for 30 years to both make the railway profitable and to recoup its investment, before Tazara would be transferred over to the Tanzanian and Zambian governments.

The plan was announced on the sidelines of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit held in Beijing in early September. Chinese President Xi Jinping, Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema and Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan witnessed the signing of a deal with CRCC that signalled the start of the Tazara revitalisation. “Upgrading this strategic railway line will create jobs and enhance trade and connectivity in our region,” Hichilema said at the time.

The revitalisation plan would allow upgrades of tracks and purchases of new locomotives to increase capacity and help shift more heavy cargo from roads to rail, according to Zambian Transport and Logistics Minister Frank Tayali.

“It is poised to catalyse the much-needed revitalisation of our infrastructure and rolling stock, positioning Tazara to achieve its full potential,” the Tazara Railway Authority said.

“We anticipate that the rehabilitation of both infrastructure and rolling stock will take approximately two years.”

Leaders Xi Jinping, Samia Suluhu Hassan and Hakainde Hichilema (at back) witness the signing of a memorandum of understanding on the revitalisation project of the Tazara railway, on the sidelines of the 2024 FOCAC summit. Photo: Xinhua

Meanwhile, the railway authority’s head of public relations, Conrad Simuchile, said negotiations over the concession were “still ongoing” with CCECC, Tazara’s original construction company.

“We aim to finalise the concession agreement by the end of the year,” Simuchile said.

The concession will cover a period of up to 30 years, and in that time, Tazara Railway Authority said its operational capacity was expected to increase “from the current combined average of 500,000 metric tonnes for all operators to approximately 2 million metric tonnes”.

The upgrade of Tazara comes as the EU and America have announced their own infrastructure investment in the region.

Eyeing critical minerals from resource-rich Zambia and the DRC – where Chinese companies have vast interests – the Lobito Corridor project will see the Western superpowers fund the building of a railway line from the Zambian copperbelt region, through the DRC, to join up with an existing line which runs to the Atlantic port city of Lobito in Angola.

It is the first big infrastructure project that the US has undertaken in Africa in decades. And it might not stop there. Washington recently announced that it might also extend the railway to Tanzania all the way to the Indian Ocean, effectively running the railway right across the African continent.

A major Chinese investment in Tazara has been on and off the negotiating table for more than a decade, according to Tim Zajontz, a research fellow in the Centre for International and Comparative Politics at South Africa’s Stellenbosch University, who has done studies about the railway. He noted that talk of China’s help with the railway’s upgrade long predated America’s new-found interest in Africa’s transport corridors.

Nonetheless, Zajontz said geopolitical considerations had certainly played a role in China’s cost-benefit analysis to take over the railway, which would require significant investment to make a profit.

“It is evident that both China and the West have an interest in exerting a degree of control over transport corridors that provide access to Zambia’s and Congo’s critical minerals,” said Zajontz, who is also a lecturer in global political economy at the University of Freiburg and wrote the book, The Political Economy of China’s Infrastructure Development in Africa.

Announcing such symbolic and large-scale endeavours at the summit is not least intended to counter certain speculations that China may cut back its engagement on the African continent

The timing of the Tazara revamp announcement was also strategic, he said.

“Announcing such symbolic and large-scale endeavours at the [FOCAC] summit is not least intended to counter certain speculations that China may cut back its engagement on the African continent,” Zajontz said.

Critical minerals are at the heart of the Tazara upgrade, according to Lauren Johnston, a China-Africa specialist and an associate professor at the University of Sydney’s China Studies Centre. She said the railway connected to deeply important renewable minerals in the DRC, which produces more than 60 per cent of global cobalt supplies, and Zambia, a major copper producer.

“If this leg remains aged, it may undermine China’s role in Africa’s contemporary railway modernisation and construction agenda. It’s a case of refitting the original,” Johnston said.

“The railway had become rundown and was not fit for the intended new era of railways in the region, let alone China’s modern railway brand.”

She also noted Tazara’s political history.

“The railroad was built to circumvent Western control of South Africa and Zimbabwe,” she said. “It was a symbol of resistance.”

China funded and built Tazara under the leadership of chairman Mao Zedong at a time when the young People’s Republic was itself facing financial difficulties.

Back then, landlocked Zambia was desperate for this railway link after its neighbour, the white-controlled Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), opposed to the transfer of power to the black majority next door, and cut its only outlet to the sea – the road and rail through Rhodesia to the seaports in southern Africa.

China stepped in after the US and Russia refused to fund a new line, saying it would not make economic sense.

Around 50,000 Chinese workers built the railroad between 1970 and 1975 at a cost of US$500 million via an interest-free loan to be repaid over 30 years.

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