With commercial operations having officially started in January 2018, the Djibouti-Addis Ababa railway has also reduced transit time between Djibouti City and Addis Ababa from three days by road, to just 12 hours by rail.
The railway is connected to the SGTD container terminal and DMP cargo terminal, facilitating fast transfer of containers, with up to 4-5 trains per day transiting from the terminal to Ethiopia.
In total, the railway has 1,100 freight cars and 30 passenger cars in operation, giving it the capacity to carry 4 million tons of freight and 2 million passengers.
The railway was financed with a total investment of $4.2 million, $878 million of which was financed by Djibouti. The Ethiopian section of the railway was co-financed by the Ethiopian government and China Exim Bank.