{"id":20616,"date":"2026-04-26T12:24:59","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T12:24:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/?p=20616"},"modified":"2026-04-26T12:24:59","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T12:24:59","slug":"africa-finance-corporation-targets-end-2027-financial-close-for-lobitos-zambia-railway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/20616\/africa-finance-corporation-targets-end-2027-financial-close-for-lobitos-zambia-railway\/","title":{"rendered":"Africa Finance Corporation targets end-2027 financial close for Lobito&#8217;s Zambia railway"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Africa Finance Corporation will launch its debt and equity fund-raising push for a new rail line in Zambia in the third \u200bquarter of this year, a senior official said on Friday, seeking \u200cfinancial close in the fourth quarter of 2027.<\/p>\n<p>The high-profile railway line &#8211; part of the U.S.-backed Lobito Corridor connecting copper and cobalt mines to the Atlantic coast &#8211; is part \u200bof Washington&#8217;s global push to secure access to strategic metals and \u200bminerals and a bid to counter Chinese influence in Africa.<\/p>\n<p>Once \u2060the cash is raised, construction of the line is set to start \u200bimmediately and be completed in 2030, Amadou Wadda, senior director of portfolio management \u200bat the Lagos-based AFC told a conference on\u00a0African infrastructure in the Kenyan capital.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The AFC &#8211; lead developer of the corridor &#8211; expects to receive proposals from contractors for the construction of \u200bthe Zambia leg of the railway by end-May, having undertaken a feasibility \u200bstudy earlier, Wadda said.<\/li>\n<li>The Lobito Corridor project is designed to counter the China-backed revival of \u200cthe \u2060Tanzania-Zambia railway corridor and will link copper fields in Zambia and cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Angola&#8217;s Lobito port on the Atlantic seaboard by railway.<\/li>\n<li>The project involves the construction of 515 km (320 miles) \u200bof rail lines \u200bin Zambia and \u2060another 315 km in the Democratic Republic of Congo that will connect to the existing 1,300-km Benguela line in \u200bAngola.<\/li>\n<li>Last December, backers of the corridor\u00a0secured financingfor the \u200brehabilitation of \u2060the Angola line from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation and the Development Bank of Southern Africa.<\/li>\n<li>AFC has not said how much the construction of the \u2060Zambia line \u200bwill cost.<\/li>\n<li>Wadda said the AFC has signed \u200binitial agreements with businesses for carrying of 1 million tonnes of cargo &#8211; half of the minimum \u200brequired to make the project viable.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Africa Finance Corporation will launch its debt and equity fund-raising push for a new rail line in Zambia in the third \u200bquarter of this year, a senior official said on Friday, seeking \u200cfinancial close in the fourth quarter of 2027. The high-profile railway line &#8211; part of the U.S.-backed Lobito Corridor connecting copper and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16740,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":4,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,33,30],"tags":[5054,2565,131,5055,394],"class_list":["post-20616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-southern-africa","tag-africa-finance-corporation","tag-lobito-corridor","tag-tanzania","tag-tanzania-zambia-railway-corridor","tag-zambia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20616"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20617,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20616\/revisions\/20617"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}