Mozambique: President wants electric trains to ease capital’s traffic congestion

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Mozambique: President wants electric trains to ease capital’s traffic congestion

6:55 CAT | 12 May 2025

File photo: Notícias

President Daniel Chapo announced in Dar es Salaam on Friday that Mozambique’s government wants to ease traffic congestion in Maputo with electric rail links. Chapo was visiting the Tanzanian project.

‘We will work towards this to bring to fruition a project that may not start on a national scale, at least not initially, but at least in Greater Maputo. We will solve the transport problem in Greater Maputo, and then we can think about the bigger dream: to connect the country,’ Daniel Chapo explained to journalists.

The head of state, who is today ending a state visit to Tanzania, visited the railway station in Dar es Salaam, observing the operation of the electric train that serves the region, which the government is trying to replicate in the area of the Mozambican capital, which has almost two million inhabitants.

READ: Electric railway system: President Chapo wants to replicate Tanzania’s model in Mozambique

‘We think that in the first phase, the connection between Maputo-Matola and Maputo-Marracuene is very important to ease traffic congestion in the country’s capital, a project of this type and size,’ said Chapo, highlighting the benefits of this transport in terms of safety, speed and economic impact.

Mozambique’s government has previously announced that it plans to invest around €193.3 million by 2030 in doubling railway lines and purchasing carriages, locomotives and wagons to boost passenger and freight transport capacity.

‘In the southern and central railway system, under the direct management of Portos e Caminhos de Ferro de Moçambique (CFM), we plan to invest around 14 billion meticais (€193.3 million) in the period 2025-2030 in the implementation of strategic projects,’ said Transport and Logistics Minister João Matlombe last April when inaugurating three new locomotives in Maputo.

The minister said that the government wants to invest in completing the duplication of the remaining 25 kilometres of the Ressano Garcia railway line in Maputo, which links Mozambique and South Africa, and also in the acquisition of more than 30 carriages, to increase passenger transport capacity.

The government also intends to acquire at least 250 wagons by 2030 to meet the growing demand for mineral transport and to purchase at least 15 mainline locomotives.

The minister of transport and logistics said that the three new locomotives cost 422.4 million meticais (€5.8 million) and are intended to strengthen passenger rail transport capacity in the Greater Maputo region, recognising their impact on community development.

Source: Lusa