Egypt's Qalaa Holdings to establish 2 railway lines in Eastern Africa

Minister of Transport Kamel al-Wazir stated Wednesday in a meeting with the Rwandan ambassador that Qalaa Holdings would implement a railway line between Tanzania's Dar es Salaam Port and Burundi, passing through Rwanda's Kigali, and another between Kenya's Mombasa Port and Uganda.

It is noted that Rwanda is a landlocked country that relies on Kenya's Mombasa Port and Tanzania's Dar es Salaam Port for import and export. In that context, the meeting tackled establishing a logistic zone in Rwanda to store Egyptian exports.  

The minister also noted the salience of the Vic-Med project aiming to connect Lake Victoria with the Mediterranean through the 11 Nile Basin countries, including Rwanda.

The project requires rehabilitating 6,600 kilometers of the waterway; implementing a number of constructions to overcome natural barriers; revamping some existing inland ports and building new ones; introducing multimodal transport in some areas; establishing vocational training centers specialized in inland transport; and modernizing fleets of member states.

Further, various countries, including Rwanda, can be linked to Cairo-Cape Town Road, which Egypt aims to establish to bolster trade exchange between African states. The road will stretch on 10,228 kilometers, including 1,155 kilometers in Egypt, crossing nine countries that are Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa.