New Central-East African Rail Infrastructure to Boost Development and Commerce

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Written by Richard Finlayson, Senior International Editor for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Construction on the rail line to link the Central and East African countries of Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania is scheduled to begin in 2014. The three governments are proceeding with fundraising for the project, which will help boost to economic and social development in the region.

Design work, engineering studies, and the development of financial, legal, institutional and regulatory frameworks have been completed. This follows the completion of feasibility studies for the project, which were completed in 2009. The rail line will also reduce tariff barriers to trade, rationalize transport costs and help reduce road transport delays.

Tanzania and Uganda have also reached an agreement about a rail line project to run from Tanga-Arusha-Musoma to the Ugandan capital Kampala. In January, the two countries signed an agreement with China Civil Engineering Construction Company for the project. The Chinese company will conduct a feasibility and implementation study for the project. Feasibility studies will be completed for the $3 billion project by April 2012.

Tanzania and Uganda have agreed that the line from Tanga to Kampala will not cut though the World Heritage Serengeti National Park. The line through Serengeti could have endangered the annual migration of nearly 2 million animals. Now the line will go through the more densely populated areas to the south, giving it greater commercial potential.

The project will include the 880-kilometer line, the Mwaba Port in Tanga and Musoma Dock at Port Bell in Uganda. Freight will be transported across Lake Victoria from Musoma Dock by ferry to Port Bell in Uganda. The project is scheduled for completion in 2015.

The new rail networks in the region will eventually be developed to connect the interior with Tanzania's port at Dar es Salaam and to the Wao railhead in the newly independent South Sudan.

The new interconnected transport networks in Africa are of critical importance to development as they break the old border-conscious colonial corridor compartmentalization and give agriculture and commerce the ability to deliver the goods to regional and global markets. In addition, the social interaction between the populations afforded by regional networks blurs the sometimes arbitrary borders that divide groups of people with centuries-old ties.

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