The Canada Brief

World · 4 d ago

A TAZARA train near Iringa, Tanzania

Erasmus Kamugisha · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Tanzania and Angola agree to link TAZARA and Benguela railways

Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan announced Thursday an agreement to connect Angola's Benguela Railway to the TAZARA line. The link would join the Atlantic port of Lobito to Dar es Salaam on the Indian Ocean.

The route would run through Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, giving their mineral exports another way to reach international markets.

What we know

  • The two countries agreed to connect the lines
  • Both lines are being upgraded separately

Not yet

  • The construction timetable
  • The cost

Suluhu gave no construction timetable or cost estimate, and the plan depends on rehabilitation work already planned on both lines.

China agreed in 2025 to fund modernization of TAZARA, which it built in the 1970s. The United States and European Union back the Lobito Corridor to the Atlantic.