The rail freight landscape in Europe looks much different from elsewhere. The lead of this article already mentioned Central Asia, where the overarching theme concerns trade route diversification. Building new railways and reaching new destinations is key for economic security and trade potential. RailFreight.com has reported extensively on the various agreements and studies being undertaken to work towards a trans-Afghan railway, for instance.

A similar situation is unfolding in southern Africa. The champion of rail in this region is Zambia: a similarly landlocked country. It will be the beneficiary of not one, not two, but three ongoing rail projects that originate in the country.

TAZARA and Lobito

The first two are the TAZARA (to Dar Es-Salaam, Tanzania) and the Lobito Corridor (to Angola). Both connect Zambia’s inland mines to ocean ports, creating or rehabilitating avenues for exports and economic growth. Whereas the TAZARA is a China-sponsored railway with national Zambian investments leading to Africa’s east coast, investment in the Lobito Corridor is the Western answer to the Chinese infrastructure ambitions in the region.

As a result, Zambia could soon have two functioning rail routes giving it access to the world’s oceans: one leading west, one leading east. Meanwhile, the country is gearing up for a third railway. The Mosetse–Kazungula–Livingstone (MKL) line will connect Zambia to its southern neighbour Botswana through a narrow 150-metre long shared border across the Zambezi river.

While this railway will not link to any coast, it will improve the country’s connectivity to its much richer neighbour. On 1 April, government representatives came together to reaffirm their commitment to building the MKL railway. A favourable situation for Zambia, considering Botswana is a relatively large importer of its copper wires.

A word of advice from Europe

The MKL project aims to enhance trade, connectivity, and regional integration, explains Zambia’s rail operator. MKL will span approximately 430 kilometres, comprising 365 kilometres from Mosetse (Botswana) to border town Kazungula. From Kazungula, it is another 65 kilometres to Livingstone (Zambia). MKL “is expected to improve cargo and passenger movement while reducing transport costs and easing pressure on road infrastructure.”

With rail-port connections to Durban (South Africa), Dar Es-Salaam and Lobito, Zambia looks set transport-wise for exports of valuable mining products. The MKL will improve trade with wealthy Botswana.

While Europe battles with its own rail maladies, the same sector is looking promising for Zambia. A word of advice from our continent: just make sure to keep those track access charges affordable and infrastructure reliable. In that aspect, Zambia may run into familiar problems, remaining dependent on the availability of rail infrastructure across borders.

“By reducing freight transit time from Zambia and DRC to the sea from over a month to just one week, the Lobito Corridor is transforming how goods move across central and southern Africa”, the European Commission wrote about the corridor earlier. “It is opening markets for farmers, small businesses and industries while creating new jobs and lowering carbon emissions.”

Critical raw materials

European Commissioner for International Partnerships, Jozef Síkela, visited Zambia from 10 to 12 November to deepen the EU-Zambia partnership and promote industrial and infrastructure development along the Lobito Corridor. Síkela also discussed “cooperation on critical raw materials”, which is what much of the geopolitical rail competition in Africa is about.

Ahead of the visit, the European Commission said that the agreement would cover an investment of 116 million euros. ZNBC Today has reported that a total investment of 200 million euros was agreed upon.

China’s state-owned China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) has won the concession to manage TAZARA for the coming 30 years. One billion of the total investment will go to renovation works for the 1,860-kilometre railway, the remaining 400 million dollars is reserved for the purchase of 32 locomotives and 762 new wagons. In total, the project is expected to take two years.

For Beijing, the benefits are manifold: it gets to assert control over a key artery for critical raw material supply chains, commercial benefits and leverage over the hosting countries. What’s more, it counteracts Western investments in the so-called Lobito Corridor in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Angola, which too leads to Kapiri Mposhi.

The US has pledged at least 803 million US dollars to support that 1,700-kilometre railway, which also connects copper (and cobalt) mines to sea ports. According to the Africa Policy Research Institute, Western financing in total could be as high as 6 billion US dollars. The Lobito Corridor is also a counteracting measure: Western countries seek to undermine China’s already entrenched position in African mining.

Railways to resources

There is a new competition for influence and resources, which means that the battle for African railways is on. The late 19th and early 20th centuries echo in modern geopolitics, especially since foreign powers are after Africa’s precious minerals. China has been leading the way in recent years, with rail projects such as the Simandou railway in Guinea. That 600-kilometre railway is supposed to enable maritime exports of iron ore. Other Chinese rail projects have taken place in Nigeria, Kenya and Ethiopia.

It seems that Europe and the US will be playing a game of catch-up while China is upping the stakes. In July, China finished a part of the Algerian Western Railway, having built 135 kilometres of the line to the Gara Djebilet iron ore mine. An agreement for 6,000 kilometres of rail was signed in 2024.

Western countries are responding with not only investments in the Lobito Corridor, but also in the Ressano Garcia Line in Mozambique. A 145 million euro combined investment by France and the EU should help build double tracks and boost capacity threefold, to 44,6 million tonnes per year. Unsurprisingly, this line too connects mines (in South Africa) to a port (Maputo).

A broader effort to counter BRI

These rail investments fall into a broader strategy to counteract China and its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) programme. For example, the US and EU have responded to China’s African advancements by establishing the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, of which the Lobito Corridor is the flagship project. African membership of the programme includes Zambia, DRC and Angola.

The EU has its Global Gateway strategy, which seeks to create “strategic, sustainable, and secure transport corridors” and “support value chains, services and jobs”. The EU’s corridor wishlist is long and includes many inland-to-coast routes.

The flipside of the coin

Africa is hoping for lucrative business opportunities, but critics have argued that the investments will lead to resource exploitation akin to that of the colonial era. There may be opportunities, but not all is rainbows and sunshine for African nations as they become a geopolitical battleground.

To illustrate, Kenya has encountered problems with the burden of the infrastructure debt it owes to China. The country failed to repay debts, incurred a penalty fine of a couple of million dollars, and ended up converting the loans from dollars into yuan on 7 October to save on interest payments. It should help save the country 215 million euros a year.

That same railway faced criticism because there was “no real plan for operating the railway” after construction. Mistakes were allegedly made in the acquisition of rolling stock and setting tariffs. The Chinese construction company rushed arrangements for operations on the line, and Kenya missed opportunities “develop national know-how and capability”.