Egypt Edition 
UAE Edition 
Saudi Edition 
MENA <> India Corridor 
Logistics (MENA) 
Climate (MENA) 
Share
We might be getting fresh funding for our second high-speed rail line: The Madbouly government has opened talks with international lenders for a USD 2.1 bn soft loan to help fund the second phase of the 2k-km high-speed rail line between Sixth October and Abu Simbel, reports Asharq Business, citing two unnamed government sources. German development bank KfW and Italian export credit agency SACE were both named by the news outlet as being involved in the discussions.
Who’s going to lay the tracks and run the trains? Siemens Mobility, Orascom Construction, and Arab Contractors were put in charge of designing, installing, commissioning and maintaining the line for 15 years.Deutsche Bahn and Elsewedy Electric will manage and operate the first phase running between Ain Sokhna and Marsa Matrouh.
This is the second leg of a USD 23 bn project that will stretch for some 1.8k km across Egypt, linking Cairo, Aswan, the North Coast and the Red Sea. The Sokhna-Matrouh connection will feature a passenger line able to carry more than 30 mn people a year as well as a freight line that the German conglomerate referred to as a “Suez Canal on tracks.” The passenger trains will travel at up to 250 km/hour, reducing travel time by up to 50%. This is at least double the speed of the current network, which offers speeds of between 90 and 120km/hour.
ALSO CHUGGING ALONG IN ROLLING STOCK NEWS-
International companies are bidding for Alexandria’s metro trains contract: Familiar faces in our railway industry like France’s Alstom, along with south Korea’s Hyundai, Spain’s CAF, Russia’s Transmash, and China’s CRRC have submitted offers to produce 21 trains for Alexandria’s planned metro, reports Asharq Business, citing two unnamed government officials. Offers for the roughly USD 400 mn contract are backed up by soft loans from international development banks, the news outlet added.
An update on Metro Line 6: The National Authority for Tunnels inked an MoU with a consortium led by the French consulting and engineering firm AEGIS to move forward with the second phase of studies for Cairo Metro’s Line 6, the Transport Ministry said in a statement. The studies will go on for an 18-month period as the companies prepare the design, project requirements, technical specifications, and tender documents for the project. The French government is financing this phase of studies with an EUR 8 mn grant.
Metro Line 6? The 27-station, 35-km line will be the first driverless metro in Africa and will link Shubra El Kheima in the north to New Maadi in the south. French rolling stock manufacturer Alstom last November inked a framework agreement to design, build, and maintain the line.
