CHINA-AFRICA: ETHIOPIA RAILWAY

 Xinhua reported that the Ethiopia-Djibouti railway, built at a cost of US$ 40 billion started operations on October 5, 2016. It was described as Africa’s first electric railway and spanning almost 750 km and is China Railway’s first whole-industry chain built to Chinese standards outside China. Meng Fengchao, Chairman of the China Railway Construction Corp (CRCC) said "This is a landmark achievement for Belt and Road and China-Africa collaboration". Yu Xingru, Chief Engineer of the CRCC Fourth Survey and Design Institute Group, observed that the project had been rated as impossible by foreign engineers due to backward basic infrastructure and severe construction supply constraints. He said the obstacles were overcome by localising Chinese standards to the project, making it not only feasible, but profitable and sustainable.

The railway has cut travel time between Addis Ababa and Djibouti from a week to about ten hours, reports Xinhua, providing landlocked Ethiopia swift access to the port. Zheng Jun,  Party Secretary of CRCC China-Africa Construction said the launch marks the start of industrialisation in Ethiopia, and Chinese firms may now extend the supply chain into: tourism, logistics, real estate,and deepening Belt and Road cooperation with Somalia and South Sudan. Xinhua added that "the socially responsible project" has created more than 4.8 million jobs for local residents, equipped them with marketable technical skills, built roads and schools along the line, and delivered more than 80,000 tonnes of food supplies during the Ethiopian drought in 2015.
 






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