The Chinese government has selected China Railway to negotiate a concession to operate the Tanzania-Zambia Railway line (Tazara), which connects Zambia with the port of Dar es Salaam.

In a communiqué issued on October 31, the China Railway Construction Corp. unit has been asked to submit its proposal, the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority announced.

“The Board noted that China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), a subsidiary of China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC), had been officially introduced by the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the company to negotiate with on the concession of TAZARA and that a proposal from CCECC was expected by the end of October 2023,” reads the statement.

Earlier in October, The Citizen reported that Tanzania was willing to invest heavily in Tazara.

“We want our country to be the gateway to many nations. Very soon, we will surprise the world with what we want to do, and that will be a good opportunity for us due to our geographical location,” Transport Ministry permanent secretary Prof Godius Kahyarara told The Citizen.

Tanzania and Zambia last year committed to upgrading Tazara as part of measures to strengthen bilateral relations between the two countries.

Under the plan announced during Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema’s visit to Tanzania, the 1,160km cross-border railway linking Kapiri-Mposhi in Zambia with Dar es Salaam is to be upgraded to standard gauge through a partnership with the private sector and development partners.

President Samia Suluhu Hassan said the 1,067mm-gauge, single-track Tazara line does not deliver what was expected of it, and an upgrade was needed to open up new business opportunities along the route.

“In today’s world, railways are standard gauge. So, through a public-private partnership, we have agreed to come up with a project to improve Tazara to that level.”

According to Prof Kahyarara, an agreement towards that goal would be signed soon with the goal of making Tanzania the gateway to Sadc, Comesa, and East African Community member states.

The government, said Prof Kahyarara, was also improving lake transport to enable businesspeople to easily transport goods.

“We are also continuing with negotiations with the DRC government on the construction of the SGR. Good progress has been made, and details will be shared with the public soon.”

The DRC has the most goods passing through Tanzania, followed by Zambi.

Tazara’s construction between 1970 and 1975 and its inauguration in 1976 were steeped in anti-imperialist narratives that emphasised Sino-Africa solidarity.

According to the Transport Ministry’s budget speech earlier in the year, Tazara transported a total of 244,492 tonnes of cargo 2021/23 compared to 210,161 tonnes the previous year, representing a 16.3 percent increase.

Although DRC is resource-rich with large supplies of copper, cobalt, and gold, as well as being the world’s second-largest rainforest, its people remain relatively poor due to poor transport infrastructure and a lack of access to regional markets.

The move may help revive the near-five-decade-old line that Mao Zedong’s government built to be China’s biggest foreign aid project, costing about $500 million. The Tazara railway has since fallen into disrepair and hauls a fraction of its design capacity of about 5 million tons per year.

It’s becoming increasingly strategic as transport routes into and out of a copper-rich region that stretches from Zambia into the Democratic Republic of Congo become clogged.

The railway may compete with a new one that the US is helping Zambia build that will connect the so-called copper belt with an existing line running to the Angolan port of Lobito.

The Tazara line was front and center of Zambian President Hichilema’s September state visit to China, his Transport Minister Frank Tayali said in an interview on September 20.