Preliminary Study for Sustainable and Integrated Development of the Lobito-Benguela Railway Corridor
Angola
Angola’s unprecedented economic and social growth over the past decade has provided the country with the necessary capacity to move towards a structured growth model of economic diversification while becoming less reliance on oil and gas activities and imports. Sectors such agri-food, energy and mining have important development potential. However, the country needs infrastructure, production, business and research centers, capable of catalyzing and guaranteeing the necessary conditions for stable and sustainable development, and balanced country.
Angola as a commercial platform to the interior of Southern Africa
Angola currently has three railway lines that connect the interior of the country with the port cities of Luanda (the capital) Lobito and Namibe. Of the three lines, the Lobito Corridor extends more than 1,300 km within the national territory, and has an area of influence of 370,000 km2, home to 6 million people. It is the only national axis with an international profile, as it integrates the Atlantic-Indian Corridor (Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique), while providing access to the North-South Corridor bound for Tanzania and South Africa.
In this context, IDOM has developed the preliminary study for the drafting of the Comprehensive and Sustainable Regional Development Plan for the Lobito-Benguela Railway Corridor.
The challenge has been to identify the opportunities and the economic vocations to turn the existing corridor into one of the main transport and logistics infrastructures in Angola. It will be a key element for the development of the country, a platform for commercial exports and imports to the interior of Southern Africa.
Along the extension, there are areas with enormous potential for large-scale agricultural development, with mineral resources, hydrographic resources for energy production and for irrigation, and natural areas to boost tourism growth.
