South Africa’s trade gateway status is being challenged further by Mozambican investments in road and rail, which are planned to extend linkages into neighbouring countries and as far as Botswana. One of the most ambitious is a new 1 500-kilometre Botswana-Zimbabwe-Mozambique rail and port (at Techobanine south of Maputo) at a cost of $600 million, to be split evenly between the three countries.In April 2022 the three countries committed $3m in a feasibility study for the port and rail line.Trains are already running on the route. Rail consignments of 40 wagons carrying 2 000 tons of mineral coal from Palapye in Botswana have been exported through Grindrod’s Matola terminal in the Port of MaputoIt is the result of a partnership between the African Railway Company, Botswana Rail, National Railways of Zimbabwe, Mozambican Railway Company CFM and Grindrod.According to Grindrod, the corridor has the potential to move 350 000 to 400 000 tons of coal a year from Botswana.There are several rail projects in the north.CFM reports that work is progressing on 72 kilometres of the Bangula-Marka railway line which will link Malawi’s main commercial centre, Blantyre, to Beira once work on the Malawian side has been completed. Rail connections between Beira, Zimbabwe and the Copperbelt will improve once work has been completed on a $200m, 318km link from the port to Machipanda on the Zimbabwe border, scheduled for this month.It will increase capacity from 600 000 tons a year to 3.5m, according to CFM chairman Agostinho Langa Júnior.Chinese group Eternal Tsingshan has announced an investment of $13m in a dry port at the Machipanda administrative post.The group also has plans to set up an industrial park in the district of Dondo, Sofala province.According to reports, the Machipanda dry port will have an initial capacity of two million tons a year.Tsingshan is building a $1-billion iron and steel plant in Zimbabwe, which will use local raw materials and be the biggest in Africa, producing up to 1.2m tons of steel a year.There are plans for a new dedicated rail line to link the giant plant to a new port in Mozambique.Rail links with South Africa are also being upgraded, which will give exporters and importers faster access to the Port of Maputo.Work on doubling the 50km Ressano Garcia railway line, which links Mozambique and South Africa, is due to be completed by the end of the year, according to Langa.The $82m upgrade is being financed by CFM.It will increase the capacity of the Ressano Garcia line to 24 million tons a year from the present 13 million tons.
