Ethiopia has readied 110 freight train wagons dedicated to transporting liquid goods from Djibouti port to Ethiopian Hinterland, part of the nation’s plans to solve recurrent fuel shortages. The freight train wagons will be used on the 756 kms Ethiopia-Djibouti electrified rail line built at a cost of 4.2 billion US dollars by Chinese firms and largely financed by the Export-Import Bank of China. With the Ethiopian government determining that fuel transportation by land is inefficient, it has dedicated 110 wagons out of 1,100 freight train wagons for the sole purpose of transporting fuel products. Ethiopia in the 2016/17 Ethiopian Fiscal Year (EFY) that ended July 8 used 3 billion liters of fuel, an increase of 10 percent from the same period last year. The East African nation has dedicated about 2 billion US dollars in the current EFY 2017/18 for the purchase of fuel and coal products.

Source: Ethiopian News August 09, 2017 01:30 UTC