The Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) will launch its debt and equity fund-raising push for a new rail line in Zambia in the third quarter of this year, a senior official said this Friday, seeking ‌financial close in the fourth quarter of 2027.

The high-profile railway line, part of the United States (US)-backed Lobito Corridor connecting copper and cobalt mines to the Atlantic coast, is part of Washington’s global push to secure access to strategic metals and minerals and a bid to counter Chinese influence in Africa.

Once ⁠the cash is raised, construction of the line is set to start immediately and be completed in 2030, Amadou Wadda, Senior Director of Portfolio Management at the Lagos-based AFC told a conference on African infrastructure in the Kenyan capital.

The AFC, lead developer of the corridor, expects to receive proposals from contractors for the construction of the Zambia leg of the railway by end-May, having undertaken a feasibility study earlier, Wadda said.

The Lobito Corridor project is designed to counter the China-backed revival of ‌the ⁠Tanzania-Zambia railway corridor and will link copper fields in Zambia and cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to Angola’s Lobito port on the Atlantic seaboard by railway.

The project involves the construction of 515 km (320 miles) of rail lines in Zambia and ⁠another 315 km in the DRC that will connect to the existing 1 300-km Benguela line in Angola.

Last December, backers of the corridor secured financing for the rehabilitation of ⁠the Angola line from the US International Development Finance Corporation and the Development Bank of Southern Africa.

AFC has not said how much the construction of the ⁠Zambia line will cost.

Wadda said the AFC has signed initial agreements with businesses for carrying of 1 million tons of cargo, half of the minimum required to make the project viable.

–Reuters–