ADDIS ABABA, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) -- The Ethiopia-Djibouti railway, also known as Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway, opened service on October 5.
"In the process of building the railway, we attached great importance to the construction quality and built the railway with high quality, which has comprehensively showed the Chinese quality and Chinese standards," said Li Changjin, chairman of the China Railway Group (CREC).
It is the first fully electrified railway in Africa. The 752.7-km line was constructed by the CREC and China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) with an investment of 4 billion U.S. dollars.
The construction of the Ethiopia-Djibouti railway adheres to China's level-two electrified railway standards. It has a designed hourly speed of 120 kilometers.
As many African countries have been following different gauge standards of Western countries, they are not in a position to form an integrated African railway network.
In January 2004, African countries proposed an integrated railway network on the continent, which promoted rapid development of railway construction in Africa and offered an opportunity for the Chinese railway standards to enter the African continent.
The construction of the Ethiopia-Djibouti railway has a good demonstration effect in African market and is able to drive exports and popularization of the Chinese standards in Africa and the world and promote "going global" of the Chinese railway standards, said Li.
He noted that lots of African countries are learning and adopting China's railway technical standards. Chinese firms have built modern railway lines in Angola and Nigeria, and are constructing the Mombasa-Nairobi railway in Kenya. These railways adopt the Chinese standards, which is of important significance to promotion of the Chinese railway standards in Africa and the world.
"The launching of the Ethiopia-Djibouti standard gauge railway line is expected to spur similar efforts of Africa to link the continent more effectively with an efficient railway transport network, which could be what Africa needs for close integration and expansion of intra-Africa trade," Gerishon Ikiara, an international economics lecturer at the University of Nairobi, told Xinhua.
Meanwhile, in the process of building the Ethiopia-Djibouti railway, the Chinese builders also took the local situation into consideration and carried out localized innovation. In the process, the builders improved the Chinese standards to make it more fit for Ethiopia's conditions, said Li.
For example, given the shortage of roadbed fillers and long-distance transport, the CREC took advantage of more cinders and used the "cinders mixed with clay" as the roadbed fillers. The method was applied to the entire railway in Ethiopia, which not only saved construction costs, but also enhanced the construction efficiency.
The Ethiopia-Djibouti railway will play an important role in promoting economic development in East Africa and the whole African continent. Cargos from Asia, including China, can be delivered to many African countries via the railway, said Li. (Edited by Hu Pingchao, hupingchao@xinhua.org)
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