Mar.20--ETHIOPIA expects to open a new railway line linking the capital Addis Ababa with the Red Sea Port of Djibouti early next year, a project at the centre of plans to create new manufacturing industries, the head of the state railways said.
The 700-kilometre (450-mile) line is being built at a cost of US$4 billion by China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC) and China Civil Engineering Construction (CCECC). Ethiopia is seeking to have 5,000 kilometres of new lines working across the country by 2020.
"By October 2015, a considerable portion of the Addis Ababa-Djibouti project will be finished," Getachew Betru, chief executive of the Ethiopian Railways Corporation, told Reuters, adding trains would run soon after. "We will start early 2016."
(Source:shippingazette)