THE US would continue funding the Lobito rail corridor which is aimed at transporting critical minerals from the central African copperbelt to the West despite President Donald Trump’s aggressive spending cuts.
The US through its International Development Finance Corporation, set up during Trump’s first term in 2019, pledged a $550m loan to support Lobito, which is considered key in countering Chinese control over copper and cobalt supplies in the region.
Trump’s spending cuts had raised concerns for projects such as Lobito which has plans for Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia. But the US Ambassador to Angola, James Story, told Reuters these fears were unsubstantiated.
Commenting during a tour of projects in Angola, Story told the newswire: “All the projects with the DFC and also with the Exim Bank are there and we’re working on them. Various organisations say that we’re moving away from this project, but that’s not true.”
In 2022, Angola handed a 30-year Lobito corridor concession to the Lobito Atlantic Railway consortium joint-venture led by commodities firm Trafigura, construction giant Mota-Engil and independent rail operator Vecturis SA.
The first phase of the venture involves refurbishing an existing 1,300km railway through Angola and extending it into the Democratic Republic of Congo’s mining heartland, to facilitate exports of copper and cobalt through the Atlantic coast, said Reuters.
A second phase currently under feasibility study would link Zambia – Africa’s second largest copper producer after the DRC – to Lobito.
Lobito Atlantic Railways CEO Francisco Franca, who was part of the tour, said DFC financing contracts were “currently in the final stages”.
“In two or three months’ time, we expect to have the contracts signed and then the normal international financing procedures will follow,” Franca told Reuters.
