China signs deal with Zambia, Tanzania for $1.4 billion railway upgrade

China, Zambia and Tanzania on Monday signed a $1.4 billion deal to refurbish the Tanzania-Zambia railway, a vital route for shipping copper exports from the region, Zambia’s government said.

The deal aims to rehabilitate the railway and purchase locomotives, passenger coaches and wagons.

Last year China signed an initial agreement to revive the 50-year-old TAZARA railway, as it is widely known, at a time the United States was throwing its financial weight behind a rival transport corridor for minerals called Lobito, after an Angolan port.

TAZARA offers a way to bypass logistics bottlenecks in South Africa that have slowed copper and cobalt exports.

(By Chris Mfula, Sfundo Parakozov and Duncan Miriri; Editing by Alexander Winning)

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