Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema guaranteed on Saturday (7) that construction of the railway line from the mining region to the port of Lobito in Angola will begin later this year.
“Work will begin this year,” the head of state told reporters on the sidelines of a conference and following a meeting with the multilateral financial institution African Finance Corporation, which is the main promoter of the project.
In statements quoted by the financial news agency Bloomberg, Hichilema said: “It has been a slow process, I admit, but we are going to put aside the big conferences, lectures, and seminars. Now we are all clear that we are going to implement the project.”
The railway and economic axis known as the Lobito Corridor has two main components: the refurbishment of an existing railway line connecting the port to the south of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and a larger and more expensive plan to build an 800-kilometer railway stretching from the Angolan border to northwestern Zambia, which alone could cost up to nearly €4 billion.
Currently, trains already run on the Angolan side, from Lobito to the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, but still irregularly and infrequently due to the poor condition of the line, with frequent derailments, including one on February 8 that interrupted traffic.
The United States of America (USA) and the European Union consider the Lobito railway project to be a flagship initiative to counter China’s growing influence in Africa, while ensuring access to metals essential for electric vehicle batteries, as well as for the defense and aerospace industries, including copper and cobalt.
The Lobito Corridor is a strategic infrastructure linking the Port of Lobito in Angola to the mining regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia via the Benguela Railway.
