Chinese steel giant bankrolls Zim rail revival

Office building of Tsingshan, the world’s largest stainless steel manufacturer and a leading enterprise in China’s nickel mining industry, in Shanghai. CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images

Tsingshan’s Dinson Steel Company, whose $1 billion (R16.6 billion) steel plant in central Zimbabwe started production in 2024, will haul 1.1 million metric tonnes of coal from ‌Hwange, a distance of about 600 km.

The rail upgrade deal also includes the transportation of 600 000 tonnes of steel products ‌from the Dinson plant to various markets in Zimbabwe and the region, the NRZ said in a statement.

Grand Railway Solutions, a subsidiary of the Dinson group, will provide locomotives, wagons and ‌fuel, with the ⁠NRZ contributing infrastructure and train crews, the state rail firm said.

The deal also includes the upgrade of the 80-km track between Gweru and Mvuma, at a cost of about $27 million, followed by the construction of a 50-km track linking Mvuma to the steel plant under a build-operate-transfer model.

Grand Railway Services will fund the construction of the track, transfer it to ⁠the NRZ and recover its costs through offsets.

“This deal is set to significantly increase annual tonnage for NRZ, while at the same time transferring the bulk of coal traffic ⁠from Hwange from road to rail,” NRZ said.

NRZ has struggled for years due to under-investment by the government and has stepped up collaborations with private logistics firms ⁠and its bulk commodity clients to boost freight volumes, which ‌collapsed from a ‌peak of 12 million tonnes in the 1990s, to 2 million tonnes in 2025.