Railways to move 20,000 MT of agri products

Mon, 01 May 2017 12:54:04 +0000

By BUUMBA CHIMBULU

ZAMBIA Railways Limited (ZRL) is targeting to move about 20,000 tonnes of agricultural products to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) this year.

ZRL chief executive officer Chris Musonda said the company had so far moved about 3,000 tonnes.

Mr Musonda said the company commenced the exports late last month with almost three trains used to move the cargo so far.

He was speaking in an interview during the just ended Agritech Expo held from April 27 to 29 at GART research centre in Chisamba.

“We have a target to move about 20,000 tonnes of agricultural products to be exported to DRC; we have moved about three trains, there is another one loading currently at Lusaka, each train carries about 1.2 tonnes of products.

“So we are targeting that if we can move a train load per week, we should be able to meet the requirement but the challenge is that the wagons take long to come back from DRC so that they can load again in Lusaka,” he said.

He also said the company was planning to develop some dry ports in the country which would target the farmers who were not along the railway line.

Mr Musonda said the railway company had identified Livingstone, Lusaka, Ndola, Chingola and Chipata as areas to put up the dry ports.

“The dry ports will make us more visible to farmers who are not along the railway line, but creates the capacity for them to bring the products to that centre, offload into the railway wagons and we move them.

“So we are hoping that in the next five years more than 60 per cent of the dry ports should be running, we are currently discussing with public private partnerships (PPP) unit, to see whether we can attract private investment in those facilities, we go into joint ventures  so that we can increase the flow of capital,” he said.

Mr Musonda said the company would soon carry out a study to narrow down what it would cost to put up the dry ports and how much the dry ports would be earning the company, saying ZRL was currently drawing the terms of reference for the facilities.