Angolan President João Lourenço told journalists in Dar es Salaam on 29 October 2026 that Angola is committed to a railway connection between the Benguela Railway and the TAZARA railway linking Tanzania and Zambia. The connection would join the Port of Lobito on the Atlantic Ocean to the Port of Dar es Salaam on the Indian Ocean, passing through the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia.
In a speech in Dodoma on 30 October, he said efforts to establish the link continue and that it could facilitate intra-African trade and extend access to regional and international markets.
Angolan President João Lourenço has said that Angola is committed to a railway connection between the Benguela Railway and the TAZARA railway linking Tanzania and Zambia. Speaking in Dar es Salaam on 29 October 2026, at the start of his first State visit to Tanzania, he said the connection would link the Port of Lobito on the Atlantic coast with the Port of Dar es Salaam on the Indian Ocean coast, and he returned to the subject in a speech in Dodoma on 30 October.
Lourenço described the Port of Lobito as the start of the Benguela Railway, which gives substance to the Lobito Corridor on the Angolan side. He said the corridor would make sense only if it achieved a rail link between Lobito and Dar es Salaam, passing through both the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia, and expressed interest in seeing the corridor completed with a link to TAZARA. He said Angola was committed to doing everything to make the project succeed.
In Dodoma, he said efforts continue to establish the link between the Benguela Railway and the Tanzania–Zambia railway system, a link he said could bring the Atlantic Ocean closer to the Indian Ocean, facilitate intra-African trade and extend access to regional and international markets. He said efforts are also continuing to establish direct air links between Luanda and Dar es Salaam.
Lourenço said talks between the two countries also covered investment opportunities in mining and the local processing of mineral resources, and in agriculture and agro-industry, and he renewed an invitation for Tanzania to become a shareholder in the Lobito Refinery, which is under construction.
He said new instruments were signed in Dodoma in the fields of defence, transport, telecommunications and justice, and that the agreements signed in Dar es Salaam included one enabling an air link between the two countries.
