The National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) expects to conclude negotiations within the coming year with a Chinese entity interested in investing in the construction of the Harare-Chitungwiza railway line.

This was said by the NRZ General Manager, Ms Respina Zinyanduko, when she appeared before a sub-committee of Parliament's Public Accounts Committee yesterday.

"What we have done is, we have engaged quite a number of partners, potential partners who are interested in the Chitungwiza line. What we have done recently is the clearance of the servitude of the line because there were some developments that were being done along the servitude. In collaboration with the Ministry of Local Government and local authorities, we have managed to issue notices to those who had encroached into the servitude.

"We have a few people who have expressed interest in operating it as a BOT arrangement, the Chitungwiza line. And one of them is a Chinese company that we are also engaging on the other side of rehabilitation of our lines. So that is one of them, but we have quite a number of people who have expressed interest. So ever since we took that route of including it on our BOT projects, we have seen traction in terms of people who are expressing interest in the line so that they can come in and operate it," she said.

Ms Zinyanduko said the Chitungwiza route was lucrative due to large numbers of people that travel between the town and Harare.

"I think Chitungwiza is one of the most viable routes for passenger trains; because of the population you are almost guaranteed that your train is going to be full.

"We are engaging and we intend to have the engagements and finalisation of the deals once we identify the partner within about a year from now because we are also engaging with the same company on the freight side," she said.

Development of the Harare-Chitungwiza railway line was among the 17 deals Zimbabwe and China signed Memoranda of Understanding on at the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation held in Beijing last month.