TELF AG analyzes the strategic role of the Tazara Railway
An important agreement
During the forum on China-Africa cooperation, held in recent days in Beijing, China reached an agreement for the renovation of the Tazara railway, a connection of about 1,860 kilometers that will connect the copper mines of Zambia with the ocean port of Dar es Salaam, in Tanzania. The agreement was signed between representatives of China, Zambia, and Tanzania and would have the main purpose of strengthening rail and maritime transport in East Africa.
As part of the agreements signed during the summit, China has promised 50 billion dollars in financial support over the next three years. This sum could promote the development of the continent from an economic and infrastructural point of view. In the field of raw materials, the restoration of the Tazara railway takes on particular importance, particularly in terms of a strategic resource such as copper. At the moment, Beijing is the world’s largest consumer of this precious metal, which is also used today in some infrastructures related to renewable energy.
The history of this railway section is not exactly recent: the original project was conceived and built in the 1970s when it was directly supported by the Chinese government led by Mao Zedong. Since its construction, which took place between 1970 and 1975, this modernization project has certainly been the most important.
A historic railway
In the 1970s, the construction of the Tazara railway represented the first African infrastructure initiative supported by China. At the time, Zambia was in a state of isolation due to the closure of the borders of neighboring Zimbabwe and the consequent impossibility of accessing the ports of East Africa. Former President Kenneth Kaunda then sought the support of international partners to build a railway line that could export Zambia’s copper, and Beijing accepted the challenge (despite several difficulties that characterized its internal economy). The railway was built thanks to a series of interest-free Chinese loans and activated an important link between Zambia’s copper and cobalt mines with East African ports. The new line officially entered into operation a year after the end of the works, in 1976, and other important logistical infrastructures, such as bridges and tunnels, were also built along with it.
The revitalization of the Tazara Railway is an integral part of a $1 billion project, the management of which will be entrusted to a Chinese state-owned company. In December 2023, Beijing sent a team of experts to assess the possibilities of restoring the railway link, and a few months later – in February 2024 – the proposal to rehabilitate the section through a public-private partnership model was formalized. The connecting artery will also play an important role for Zambia, Africa’s second-largest copper producer, which can thus hope to increase its copper exports through Tanzania. As stated in a recent report, in Beijing’s intentions, Tanzania should thus become a hub for promoting cooperation between China and African nations within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative.
At the beginning of 2024, the World Bank had approved approximately 270 million dollars in financing for the improvement of logistics connections between Tanzania and Zambia, in order to give a boost to regional trade.
