This archive report was first published on 6 July 2019.
Published on July 6, 2019, Foreign Affairs Minister Palamagamba Kabudi confirmed this week that China is back as a potential financier of Tanzania's flagship Standard Gauge Railway project.
At a recent coordination meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Beijing, Prof Kabudi stated that the Chinese government has declared its intention to support the SGR construction at a later stage and is now conducting its own evaluation of the project before engaging in further talks.
The Standard Gauge Railway project, which spans 1,457km from Dar es Salaam to western Tanzania, is a key component of President John Magufuli's government's industrialization agenda over the next decade.
Initially, the project's budget was set at $7.5 billion, with a five-year completion timeline. However, earlier plans for China's Exim Bank to provide most of the funding for its construction fell through after the administration rejected the Chinese in favor of a Turkish-Portuguese consortium.
Following the failed deal, Tanzania declared that it would pay for the project out of its own pocket. This approach has worked for the first two phases of the project, covering 726km and costing Tsh4.89 trillion ($2.5 billion).
However, funding has become an issue for the remaining phases of the project. Tanzania Railways Corporation (TRC) officials say that the first phase of the project (Dar-Morogoro) is two-thirds complete, and preparatory work on Phase Two (Dar-Makutupora) is underway.
TRC communications manager Jamila Mbarouk confirmed that the government is now striving hard to get some financing assistance in order to complete the remaining phases of the SGR construction, starting from Makutupora to the Lake Victoria zone and the western part of the country — covering about 731km.
