Congo Billionaire Seeks French Loan to Develop Railway
- Rail will ferry iron-ore exports to Congo port of Pointe Noire
- Sapro bought iron-ore mine from Exxaro two years ago
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Paul Obambi, a billionaire investor in the Congo Republic, is in talks with French lenders to fund a railway he’s building to export iron ore.
Obambi’s company SAPRO SA is negotiating with “a consortium of banks” to finance the 450-kilometer (280-mile) track that will link the southwestern town of Mayoko to a port at Pointe Noire, he said in a phone interview from Paris on Tuesday. Construction is expected to start next year and be completed by 2022, he said, without saying how much it would cost.