Chinese experts undertake technical inspection of TAZARA railway

DAR ES SALAAM, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) has dispatched a task force of experts to conduct a comprehensive business and technical inspection of the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) railway, TAZARA said in a statement Tuesday.

The inspection will be carried out from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania to New Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia, according to the statement issued by TAZARA headquarters in the Tanzanian commercial hub of Dar es Salaam.

The inspection aims to assess TAZARA's operational and business model, setting the stage for the submission by CCECC of an optimized TAZARA revitalization proposal to the shareholders of the railway, said the statement.

The 11-member team is led by Peng Danyang, the managing director of the Ethiopia-Djibouti Railway in East Africa, which operates under a public-private partnership model, involving collaboration between the governments of Ethiopia and Djibouti and Railway Operation Limited, a subsidiary of CCECC, said the statement.

The statement said April 2024 was the target for completing the TAZARA revitalization discussions.

In August 2022, Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan and her Zambian counterpart President Hakainde Hichilema agreed to mobilize resources to revive the TAZARA railway to make it modern and vibrant.

TAZARA was constructed as a turnkey project between 1970 and 1975 through an interest-free loan from China, with commercial operations starting in July 1976, covering 1,860 km from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania to New Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia.