Chinese state lenders have approved a loan for a key segment of a new cross-country rail project in Nigeria, in a deal that appears to reflect China’s increasingly pragmatic approach to development financing in Africa.
China Development Bank, a major policy bank, announced on Tuesday that it would grant an initial €245 million (US$253.7 million) tranche of funding for the Kaduna-Kano rail project, which is part of a larger rail corridor linking Nigeria from north to south.
“China has become an important driving force for global connectivity,” foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told a media briefing on Wednesday, citing a variety of cross-border rail projects China helped build.
The Kaduna-Kano railway – a 203km (126-mile) line connecting Nigeria’s northern state of Kaduna with its second-largest city, Kano – has an estimated total cost of US$1.2 billion, with China providing 85 per cent of the financing and the Nigerian government committing the rest.
According to a local source with knowledge of the project, the new line is designed to connect two previous Chinese-backed rail projects in Nigeria: one linking the capital city, Abuja, with Kaduna, and another running between the country’s largest city, Lagos, and its third-largest city, Ibadan.
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