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Politics : Israel to U.S. : Now Deal with Syria and Iran -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sea_urchin who wrote (9749)	1/9/2006 4:48:42 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22250

Re: Also China put in the Tan-Zan railway at enormous cost. But what is there to show for it all? China's Africa railway is engine of trade growth 19 Dec 2005 09:06:53 GMT Source: Reuters By Shapi Shacinda LUSAKA, Dec 19 (Reuters) - The Tazara railway was one of China's biggest aid projects during the Third World solidarity campaigns of the 1970s as Beijing proved it was ready to help Africa throw off the shackles of colonialism. Thirty 30 years later, the 1,860 km (1,160 mile) rail link between Tanzania's port of Dar es Salaam and Zambia's Copperbelt region is busier than ever -- part of China's fast-expanding web of economic interests across Africa's mineral-rich heart. Wagon-loads of Chinese products, ranging from home electronics to textiles, travel via the Tazara line to Zambia's capital Lusaka and smaller markets beyond, bringing cheap goods to consumers often written off as too poor or too isolated to be of interest to major Western exporters. In the other direction, copper, cobalt and other minerals are moved for shipment back to China -- keeping the Asian giant's economy humming. "When it was proposed, the West saw the Tazara project as uneconomical, but China was looking for friends at the time," said Chileshe Mulenga, head of the Institute for Economic and Social Research, a Lusaka think-tank. "Today they are gaining economically from Tazara." Built with an interest-free Chinese loan of $500 million between 1970 and 1976, the Tazara railway was at the time one of the most ambitious of China's overseas engineering projects, which also included sports stadiums, roads and dams. Envisioned as a way to help the black-ruled states of central and Southern Africa bypass the ports of white-ruled apartheid South Africa, the railway became a Chinese showpiece with its major railway stations built in the heavy concrete style favoured by Chinese communist planners. While the project paid diplomatic dividends -- Zambia and Tanzania, unlike some other African countries, never wavered in their support of Beijing over its rich rivals in Taiwan -- it was not the immediate economic watershed some had hoped. THE LITTLE RAILWAY THAT COULD But in recent years Tazara's importance has increased particularly as it emerged as the main overland shipping line for the 20-member Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, the continent's largest trading bloc. Tazara data seen by Reuters indicate that the railway can carry 5 million tonnes of cargo each year, although sometimes creaky infrastructure has kept actual shipments lower. Tazara's management says the railway will be more important as stability returns to Africa's Great Lakes region centred on the vast and resource rich Democratic Republic of Congo. Officials say the railway's influence already stretches as far north as Burundi and Rwanda, which are using it to import goods via Kasama in northern Zambia. "Imports can be moved by rail from Dar es Salaam to Kasama, Zambia, where they will be transshipped and moved by trucks to Mpulungu port (on Lake Tanganyika), destined to Great Lakes countries," a railway statement said. Chinese companies, particularly in the mining sector, are also benefiting as they seek efficient ways to deliver raw commodities to the home market as well as to bring in the heavy equipment needed to more fully exploit their African mining concessions. "We use the Tazara to transport mining equipment. It is cheaper compared with the road haulage and our plans are to start using it for carrying copper cathode," said Xu Ruiyong, administrative manager at Chinese-owned Chambish Mining Plc, which produces copper. Chambishi currently produces copper concentrate. The concentrate is sold locally, but plans to start producing finished copper in 2006 will see Chambishi use the Tazara more often for exports, particularly to China. While Tazara is now jointly owned by the Zambian and Tanzanian governments, China in 2004 gave the two countries a new $10 million loan to finance improvements to the rail track. Plans are now under way to either partially privatise the railway or sell management rights to a foreign firm. Data indicates that Tazara, which operates passenger and cargo trains, has carried 40 million passengers since inception and 30 million tonnes of cargo -- numbers which China's increasing African interests are pushing ever higher. China's embassy in Lusaka said Beijing provides assistance to Tazara to purchase spare parts, rails, locomotives, telecommunication equipment, rescue cranes, training of staff, machinery and other equipment. "It is our sincere wish that this great UHURU (independence) railway will continue to grow healthily," the embassy said in a written statement. alertnet.org