Ethiopian Railway Corporation (ERC) chose a consortium of Chinese firms, China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC) and Shenzen Metro Group, for maintaining as well as operating Addis Ababa Light Rail Transit for the coming five years.

CREC is the company undertaking the construction work of the railway in Ethiopia’s capital while the other firm is one that operates railway system of the Chinese City, Shenzen.

Commenting on the development ERC’s public relations head, Dereje Tefera, said the new consortium has won the limited international bid that the corporation floated to hire an experienced rail operator for the flagship LRT project which is currently under construction in Addis Ababa.

The consortium is going to be paid U.S. $ 116 Million for the services it is going to render for the coming five years.

According to the public relations head, contract for the services has not been concluded between ERC and the consortium. He furthered the contract signing ceremony will be held soon.

For the first year of the contract there will be 290 Chinese professionals that will come to Ethiopia and 396 Ethiopians will work along with them. Nevertheless, the ratio, 48/52 Chinese professionals to Ethiopians, is going to drop along the years. In the second year the ratio is expected to be 24/76 and further drop to 13/87 on the third year. On the fourth year the Chinese professionals’ role is expected to be limited to advisory role and the Ethiopians will be handling operational tasks.

The terms of contract dictate Shenzen Metro is going to do the operational tasks and it is going to is expected to implement all the technology that it is currently employing to operate the rail system of the city of Shenzen. In addition to this the contract terms state the construction of the AALRT is expected to be completed after two months.

Source: The Reporter