China Harbour plans to build a railway in Nigeria’s Commercial Hub

by Bloomberg Sep 06, 2024

China Harbour Engineering Co. agreed to build a 68-kilometer (42-mile) railway in Lagos, the Nigerian commercial hub known for traffic snarl-ups that leave commuters stranded for hours.

Nigeria’s Ministry of Finance Inc., a state-owned fund manager, and the Chinese company will source the funding to “design, finance, operate and maintain” the line, the Lagos state government said Thursday in an emailed statement.

A memorandum of understanding on the so-called Green Line Rail Project was signed at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing this week. Chinese leader Xi Jinping unveiled a raft of economic sweeteners for Africa at the summit, including providing $50 billion of financial support and $10 billion in investment by Chinese companies.

The rail line will connect Marina in Lagos’s central business district to the Lekki Free Zone on the outskirts of the city, where the Lagos Deep Sea Port and the 650,000 barrel-per-day Dangote Refinery are located.

“This rail line is projected to carry over 500,000 passengers daily at launch, rising to over a million as demand grows,” according to the statement. When completed, the new route will add to an existing so-called Blue Line that was commissioned in August 2023, and a Red Line that began operating this year.

Lagos, about the size of the US state of Rhode Island, is home to more than 20 million people and has one of the fastest-growing populations in Africa.

The state’s poor road and transport infrastructure means residents are forced to sit in traffic for hours, with commuters estimated to spend a total of 14.1 million hours a day in traffic every year, according to a 2021 report by Lagos-based Danne Institute for Research.