A century ago, British and French engineers built railways through east Africa to export their goods to Europe. The groundbreaking announcement today of Kenya’s new $4bn Mombasa-Nairobi line heralds a fresh wave of rail construction reminiscent of that era.
But this time it is the Chinese and, to a lesser extent, private equity investors who are financing the construction of thousands of kilometres of track to profit from booming regional trade.
Projects are already under way to renew the rail link between Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, and the port of Djibouti 756km away, and to rehabilitate the existing 2,200km Rift Valley Railways line that links Mombasa with Kampala.
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