The government of Tanzania has signed contracts with a Turkish firm Yapı Merkezi and Portugal’s Mota-Engil for the construction of a new 1435 mm gauge railway between Dar es Salaam and Morogoro.
To be built under a turnkey contract, the 207 km single-track line is being designed for operation at up to 160 km/h. The signing follows a visit to Tanzania in January by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, during which the Turkish government was reportedly asked to provide financial backing for the project.
The new line to Morogoro is intended to form the first stage of a planned 2,200 km standard gauge network linking Dar es Salaam with Kigali in Rwanda, Musongati in Burundi and the Lake Victoria port at Mwanza. This would supersede the existing metre-gauge Central Railway between Dar es Salaam and Mwanza.
According to Bloomberg, Yapı Merkezi and Mota-Engil have also been selected to build around 400 km of new line from Isaka to the borders of Burundi and Rwanda at a cost of around US$1bn.
China’s Eximbank agreed last year to provide up to US$7·6bn to support Tanzania’s US$9bn railway construction programme, which was to be undertaken by Chinese firms under accords signed in 2015. However, these agreements were subsequently cancelled by incoming President John Magufuli who took office in November 2015.
