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Zimbabwe’s state-owned railway company, National Railways of Zimbabwe, partnered with private logistics firms to launch a new rail service carrying lithium concentrate to Maputo port in Mozambique.
The National Railways of Zimbabwe, alongside Grindrod’s Beitbridge Bulawayo Railway unit and Silvergill, successfully moved an initial 1,000 metric tonnes of concentrate from Tsingshan Holding Group’s Gwanda mine, providing a vital alternative to costly road transport.
The new 1,000-kilometre rail route connects western Zimbabwe directly to Mozambique’s coast via the Chicualacuala border post.
This public-private alliance offers crucial freight capacity for a state rail operator whose annual volumes plummeted from 12 million tonnes in the 1990s to just 2 million tonnes in 2025 due to years of government under-investment.
The infrastructure upgrade directly supports major Chinese mining conglomerates that have invested over $2 billion in Zimbabwean lithium assets since 2021.
As Africa’s primary lithium producer transitions toward high-value local processing and forecasts exports of 344,000 tonnes of lithium sulphate by 2030, establishing reliable rail corridors remains essential for shipping battery minerals efficiently to global markets.
