RAILWYS.III

closed

The project comprises ZR's investment plan for 1980-83. It provides for renewing 112 km of track and extending and improving crossing loops; renewing the Centralized Traffic Control system and improving the telecommunications system; purchasing locomotives and wagons, and the requisite spare parts; improving maintenance and handling facilities; and providing data processing facilities, technical assistance, training, and staff housing. The economic return on the total project over a 25-year period is 19 percent at both the official and shadow exchange rates. The most substantial uncertainty over the project concerns the expected traffic growth. However, even if traffic completely stagnates, the project would still yield an economic return of 13 percent. The other uncertainty concerns the directional flow of Zambia's export/import traffic. In the event that more than presently estimated external traffic is carried via Dar-es-Salaam (the shortest route), the economic return would only decline to 15 percent.