Tanzania eyes boost in railway, air links with Rwanda

Tanzania and Rwanda have reaffirmed their commitment to deeper bilateral ties, with expansion of air connectivity, a railway project, and the promotion of Kiswahili as a shared official language being under consideration. Mahmoud Thabit Kombo, Tanzania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation, provided the updates on bilateral cooperation, on Saturday, July 26, in Kigali, during a ministerial session of the 16th Joint Permanent Commission between Rwanda and Tanzania. ALSO READ: New deal to let Rwandan traders clear goods remotely from Tanzania He pointed out that that among all of Tanzania's neighbouring countries, Rwanda—alongside Kenya—currently has the highest number of flights to and from Tanzania. RwandAir operates daily flights to the country. “That is very encouraging because connectivity is very important in any kind of relationship. So, cooperation on air services is ongoing and we are expecting to do more,” he said. Plan to resume Air Tanzania flights to Kigali Kombo pointed to the strong presence of RwandAir, highlighting its performance and service quality. I'm also informed that 90 per cent of Tanzania's delegation, including myself, have come here with RwandAir. So, Rwanda Air is doing a great work, he said. “We are also encouraging Air Tanzania to start their flights to Kigali,” he said, pointing out that it used to fly to the Rwandan capital but that “stopped for several reasons.” Beyond passenger flights, he said that plans were underway to include cargo services from Air Tanzania, indicating that it has a large cargo fleet, and it can transport the cargo for Rwanda. So, the future is very bright,” said the Tanzanian foreign minister, who had held discussions with his Rwandan counterpart Olivier Nduhungirehe. ALSO READ: What the SGR means for Kigali’s ambition to become a services hub Paving the way for the railway project In addition to aviation, Kombo indicated the two governments were committed to implementing more strategic and ambitious projects, such as the standard gauge railway (SGR) to connect Tanzania and Rwanda and improve the transport of goods between the two countries. He said the technical matters of feasibility study and route planning for the railway was under consideration at ministerial level in Tanzania. ALSO READ: Proposed Isaka-Kigali railway could be extended to Rubavu Promoting Kiswahili use in Rwanda Kombo commended Rwanda for embracing Kiswahili as one of its official languages, and the fact that Rwanda is among the very few countries in the world with four official languages—English, French, Kinyarwanda, and Kiswahili. “In Tanzania, we have only two. And as you know, Tanzania is the guardian of Kiswahili.,” he said, pointing out that Tanzania hosts the headquarters of Kiswahili not only for the East African Community, but also for Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union, and globally through UNESCO. “We have a responsibility to do more.” Tanzania, he stated, was prepared to support Rwanda in further promoting the language that's spoken by more than 200 million people, according to UNESCO. “We want to provide more facilitation, including [Kiswahili] books and teachers,” he said, adding that in the future, they hope to support efforts to foster Kiswahili teaching at the school level in Rwanda. He pointed out that Kiswahili is now the most widely spoken language in East and Central Africa. Overall, Kombo also appreciated the broad scope of collaboration between Tanzania and Rwanda. “I am pleased to note that our two countries agree to strengthen and intensify cooperation on political and diplomatic consultation, defense, security, trade, investment, agriculture, tourism, infrastructure development, ICT, energy and health sectors,” he said.

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Tanzania eyes boost in railway, air links with Rwanda