 section of railway in a bid to boost regional trade, Reuters reported, citing a Ugandan official on Monday.){kind=link}
Uganda’s government and Turkish construction firm Yapı Merkezi have signed a contract to build a 272 kilometer (169 mile) section of railway in a bid to boost regional trade, Reuters reported, citing a Ugandan official on Monday.
Uganda’s Standard Gauge Railway project coordinator, Perez Wamburu, said the agreement was for the first section of a planned 1,700 kilometer electric rail line and that the segment would cost 2.7 billion euros ($3 billion).
Construction will start in November, Wamburu said.
The project will increase trade and reduce transport costs, Uganda’s works ministry permanent secretary, Bageya Waiswa, said at the signing ceremony.
He said Uganda will use its own funds and credit from export credit organizations to finance the project, which will take 48 months to complete once started.
The rail section will run from the capital Kampala to Malaba at the border with Kenya, connecting landlocked Uganda to its neighbor’s rail network and on to the Indian Ocean seaport of Mombasa.
Uganda had entered into an agreement in 2015 with the China Harbor and Engineering Company Ltd (CHEC) to implement the project on the condition that the firm help secure funds for the railway from the Chinese government.
After years of fruitless talks, Uganda last year terminated the agreement and entered talks with the İstanbul-based Yapı Merkezi, which is carrying out a similar project in neighboring Tanzania.