Tanzania and Burundi have signed an agreement for the joint construction of a 282-kilometre standard gauge railway (SGR), a statement has said.
The statement, issued on Sunday night by the Tanzanian Ministry of Finance and Planning, said the railway will start in Uvinza, in Tanzania’s western region of Kigoma, and terminate in Gitega in Burundi.
Tanzania’s Minister for Finance and Planning, Mwigulu Nchemba, and its Minister for Works and Transport, Makame Mbarawa, signed the agreement Sunday evening, while Burundi’s Minister for Infrastructures, Equipment and Social Housing, Deogratius Nsanganiyumwami; and Minister for Finance, Budget and Economic Planning, Domitien Ndihokubwayo, signed for the Burundian government.
After the signing of the agreement, Nchemba said the two countries had begun searching for financing for the implementation of the project, which is estimated to cost less than 900 million dollars.
It will improve goods and passenger transport between the two countries and the other four member states of the East African Community; Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, and Uganda.
According to Mbarawa, the minister for Works and Transport, 156 kilometers of the SGR will be built in Tanzania and 126 kilometers in Burundi.
Tanzania is currently building a 1,637-kilometer standard gauge rail link between Dar es Salaam and its northern and western regions.
The country was connected to Burundi, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which are all landlocked countries.