On Thursday, China signed an agreement worth 1.4 billion dollars with Zambia and Tanzania to modernize the path of TAZARA iron, connecting landlocked Zambia to the Indian Ocean.

Built in the 1970s thanks to financing Chinese in order to facilitate copper exports and imports of fuel via Tanzania, the railway remains a commercial route essential. It is widely seen as an alternative to the corridor of Lobito, supported by the United States and the European Union, connecting Angola, the Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The agreement was signed during the visit to Zambia of the Prime Chinese minister Li Qiang, the first of a Chinese head of government in the country for 28 years, while the second largest African copper producer exits of a financial crisis.

“The Chinese people decided to support their brothers and sisters. in Zambia in the construction of this railway line in order to open the Zambian trade to the sea — the Indian Ocean — with the southern route being closed in due to problems inherited from the colonial era,” he said.

The Tazara railway line was built by the three countries in the 1970s in order to avoid depending on transport links passing through what were then Rhodesia and South Africa, which were under white minority governments.