Adama’s new railway station, yellow bricks golden in the afternoon sun, is still a symbol of hope for the 43-year-old who lives in a village overlooking it. A stint on the payroll of the Chinese firm that built Ethiopia’s new railway ended sourly. Built and financed by Chinese investors and contractors, and shadowing the route of an earlier French-built track, the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway lies at the heart of Ethiopia’s development aspirations. “The railway project is a transport project,” explains Dr Getachew Betru, former chief executive of the state-owned Ethiopia Railways Corporation (ERC). “A symbol of the regime.”The Chinese Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) said it hired more than 20,000 local workers in Ethiopia and 5,000 in Djibouti.

Source: The Guardian May 12, 2018 21:00 UTC