TANZANIA has introduced a 1.5% infrastructure development levy on imports to assist the government with raising $US 14.2bn to finance new rail projects and improve existing lines over the next five years.

EGYPT's Ministry of Transport has applied to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development for a €175m loan to help fund the acquisition of a fleet of trains for the Cairo metro.

THE fourth phase of Algiers' light rail network was inaugurated on June 14, when Algeria's transport minister Mr Boudjema Talai launched public services on the eastern extension of Line 1 from Kahouat Echergui to Dergana.

THE Kenyan government has decided to allocate an additional $US 1.4bn from its 2015-16 budget for the project, currently underway, to build a 609km standard-gauge line from the port of Mombasa to the capital Nairobi. 

IRJ at UITP 2015, Milan. Sir Peter Hendy, who has completed his two-year term as UITP president handed over to his successor Mr Masaki Ogata at the closing ceremony of the 2015 congress.

A new board of directors at TransNamib is providing a life-line to Namibia's railway, which has suffered from decades of under-investment in its network and fleet, as Paul Ash reports from Windhoek.

TWO contracts valued at $US 9bn have been awarded by the Tanzanian government to Chinese civil engineering companies to construct two new standard-gauge railways, one linking the country to Burundi and Rwanda, and the other connecting mines to a port.

Ethiopia is engaging in a highly ambitious railway construction programme as the government attempts to lay the foundations for economic growth. Chinese finance is supporting the majority of the schemes but as Michele Molinari and Noah Gunzinger of Swiss consultancy firm Molinari Rail, reveal, the Weldiya - Awash project is taking a different approach.

With new locomotives and EMUs set to revitalise its dilapidated fleet, Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa is starting to overcome decades of underinvestment. Yet more is required to meet the needs of a growing and increasingly urban population, as group CEO Lucky Montana reveals in an exclusive interview with Paul Ash.

RIFT Valley Railways (RVR), the concessionaire operating the 1160km Kenya Uganda Railway, managed to increase freight traffic by 24.3% last year.