A Chinese-Sudanese consortium has won a contract to build a 620-million-dollar railway through southern Mauritania that will facilitate phosphate mining, the country's AMI news agency reported Saturday.
The new train line will stretch 430 kilometres (270 miles) from the capital Nouakchott to the town of Bofal, near the border with Senegal, which possesses significant phosphate reserves, the mines and energy ministry said.
The consortium a tie-up between the Chinese company Transtec and the Sudanese firm Danfodio said the project cost was subject to a revised feasibility study in the next three months, before the deal is definitively signed.