Ethiopia awards 25-year rail concession to South Africa

Engineering News | August 31, 2006

Arelco is headed by Moeletsi Mbeki, brother of South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki.

The Ethiopian govern-ment has awarded the con-tract for the operation of 780 km of railway line from Djibouti to Addis Ababa and the negotiations with the Sudanese government centre on the rehabilitation of Sudan’s 5 500-km rail network.

Mbeki is also on the board of African rail concession company Comazar, which runs concessions in Africa.

Arelco is currently establishing a cattle business in Sudan that is expected to involve 500 000 head of cattle and its entry into the potentially lucrative rail business in the Horn of Africa is based primarily on the transport needs of its incipient livestock business.

Sudan is said to have 38-million head of cattle and Ethiopia more than 40-million.

Arelco is already a partner in a 7 000-head cattle feedlot in Delmas, Mpumalanga, the com-pany’s main objective being the supply of hide to South Africa’s household and automotive uphol-stery industry.

Arelco is also developing sugar estates in East Africa and cur-rently has access to 60 000 ha of land along the White Nile in Sudan, some of which is already irrigated. In five years, Arelco expects to be producing 600 000 t of sugar a year, which will also require rail transportation.

(Source: Engineering News; August 31, 2006)