FS Italiane in Congo: the development of railway activities has priority
Rome, 5th November 2015
Staff training, the supply of diagnostic material and restoring the main railway line of Pointe Noire-Brazzaville, in addition to building a management centre at Brazzaville and designing a metropolitan transport line that will connect the new quarter with the city centre.
These are the main commitments in Congo of FS Italiane, re-confirmed at the meeting between the Company CEO Michele Mario Elia and a delegation from Congo that included Jean-François Coutin, General Manager of the Congo Railways (Chemin de Fer Congo-Océan, CFCO) and Ferréol Gassakys, Advisor to the Congo Minister for Transport.
It is a new and important step for strengthening the collaboration between the two organisations, which began last February in Rome when the top railway managers of the two Countries placed both their signatures on a Memorandum of Understanding in the presence of the Italian Prime Minister Renzi and the President of the Republic of Congo Denis Sassou Nguesso.
FS Italiane also saw to it that the Government of Congo received financing from SACE, Cassa Depositi e Prestiti and Intesa San Paolo to cover the cost of the railway projects approved by CFCO, estimated to be 60 million Euro.
Of this amount, around 9 million Euro is for design and supply by Italferr and RFI, and the remaining 51 million Euro is for construction work to be carried out by SEAS, an Italian company of the railway branch that has been in Congo for years.
Today Italferr, the Italian Railway Group engineering company, delivered the Congo transport Master Plan to ICE, the go-between for the Congo Minister of Transport.
Regarding the Italy-Congo railway cooperation ambit, the contract was financed by the Italian Economic Development Ministry, and Italferr completed the revision within the programmed contract times.
Italferr is also following the reconstruction project involving the district of Kintelé, which includes building the new Brazzaville management centre and the designing a metropolitan transport line that will connect the new district with the city centre.