Nigeria’s government has signed up China Civil Engineering Construction Corp (CCECC) to modernize and build railway lines in the north and south of the country, the West African country’s transport minister said. The West African country’s economy has slipped into recession for the first time in more than 20 years after being greatly affected by low oil prices.
The country’s development has stunted for decades due to lack of investment in road and rail networks.
Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun said last month that extra funds would be allocated for capital projects and the government was in talks with General Electric to develop and operate rail services to improve the transport for goods.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the transport ministry said that two agreements were signed with CCECC, a subsidiary of China’s state-owned railway construction firm.
One agreement was for work on a railway segment between the northern states of Kano and Kaduna “with a contract sum of $1.685 billion”. The other agreement was related to extending a railway between the southern cities of Calabar and Port Harcourt to the Onne Deep Sea Port “at the cost of $3.4 billion”. Read more on this here.