Tanzania: Largest beneficiary of Chinese aid in Africa

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Source: CCTV.com | 02-16-2009 09:01

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In the capital city of Da res Salaam in Tanzania, a fully loaded train leaves the station and gradually merges into the vast African grassland.

The Tanzania-Zambia Railway stands as just one of over  100 infrastructure projects China has helped to build in  Tanzania.

The train is heading along the famous 1,860-kilometer-long Tanzania-Zambia Railway know as the "Freedom Railway" among local people.

The Chinese government supported the construction of the railway in the 1970s. Tens of thousands of Chinese technicians helped with the construction and 64 of them lost their lives in the process. They successfully laid the track through Africa's most rugged landscape.

The Tanzania-Zambia Railway stands as just one of over 100 infrastructure projects China has helped to build in Tanzania.

The new Tanzania National Stadium has been built by a Chinese engineering company and jointly financed by both countries. It hosted the Beijing Olympic Torch Relay Ceremony in April, 2008, witnessing another historic moment of the relationship between the two countries.

Over the past decades, China has also dispatched over one thousand medical experts to Tanzania, to help uplift the level of medical service in the country.

China has extended to Tanzania economic aid worth more than 2 billion dollars since the 1960s, making it the largest beneficiary of Chinese aid in Africa.

Editor:Zhang Ning