Canada’s export credit agency will finance the purchase by Angola of 100 locomotives from US group General Electric, according to an authorization granted by presidential order.

The order authorizes the state to borrow US$429.5 million from the Canadian state agency and justifies the decision with the need to diversify sources of funding, while ensuring the purchase of the locomotives.

The deal with General Electric involves the purchase of 100 locomotives of the GE C30-ACi model, to be provided by the AEnergia company, but whose previous orders, now repealed, provided for financing through a credit line from the US Export and Import Bank.

Another presidential dispatch cited by Portuguese news agency Lusa news agency approves loans of another US$24.1 million to finance a technological update of GE-U20C locomotives, already in service in Angola.

The reconstruction of the three national railway lines built during the colonial period – the Luanda Railroad, Benguela Railroad and Moçâmedes Railroad – involved work on 2,612 kilometres of track and building 151 railway stations from scratch and the purchase of 42 locomotives, 248 carriages of various types and 263 wagons. (macauhub)