The Addis Ababa’s light rail way project worth $475m would be completed by the end of January, the project manager told reporters. The project manager, Behailu Sintayehu,said that 80% of the track has been laid and the rail way would be completed at the end of January, 2015. The commissioning period is going to take another three months for the first passengers to be on board, he stated. The light rail way consists of two lines running for a total distance of 32km. It will have underground and over ground sections, 39 stations, and two operators that are the Ethiopian Railways Corporation and Shenzhen Metro.The $475m cost of the scheme is mostly being met by a loan from China’s Exim Bank, and the construction work has been undertaken by the China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC). The light rail way of Ethiopia will be the first urban metro light rail scheme to be built in a sub-Saharan country outside of South Africa.
