China provides $253.7m USD, 1st tranche of $1.2bn Kaduna-Kano rail project cost
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Kano train station is slated for a major train station reconstruction
Work will soon resume on the 203km (126km) Standard Rail Gauge track construction from Kaduna to Kano in Nigeria’s North West geopolitical zone.
China’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Wang Yi, announced during his visit in the first week of January 2025, to four African nations where China renewed its commitment to increase its investments in the African countries found satisfactory for developmental grants.
Wang Yi announced that the consortium of Chinese development banks had pulled through 85 per cent of the total sum of $1.2bn USD required for the project. The 15 per cent counterpart funding is expected to be provided by the Federal Government of Nigeria, FGN.
On the first Tuesday of the new year, 7th January 2025, the China Development Bank announced approval of the first tranche of the loan, for €245 million ($253.7 million USD), for the completion of the Kaduna-Kano rail project.
The project is part of a larger national rail network,, and a fraction of the rail corridor linking Nigerians from the north to the south.
Before the Kaduna-Kano rail project got on stream in 2016, the Export-Import Bank of China (China Eximbank), provided loans on concessionary terms for the project.
However, the China Exim-bank pulled the plug on the project in 2020, citing the Covid-19 pandemic and concerns about Nigeria’s ability to repay the loan.
The availability of the facility announced in Beijing seven days into the new year 2025, was a sequel to a fresh agreement by China for the Kaduna-Kano line project.
The agreement that China investment banks would grant the loan had earlier been confirmed during the “Third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation” held in 2023.
At the forum, China Development Bank made known its intention to replace the Exim-bank by stepping in to provide the finance.
According to a transportation management consultant, Engr Gregory Okparanta, the shift in the China Development Bank’s financing implies that China is convinced after conducting its due diligence that, the project will be commercially viable.
Construction of the Kaduna-Kano line is being handled by the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), a Chinese government owned enterprise that has become Nigeria’s largest construction contractor since entering the country in 1996.
CCECC has already constructed more than 670km of standard-gauge railway in Nigeria and currently has another 200km under construction.
The company also built the Abuja-Kaduna and Lagos-Ibadan rail lines.
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