China sponsors training program for 35 Train Conductors to work on the Chinese-financed Ethiopia-Djibouti railway.

Project narrative

In October 2019, 35 Ethiopian train conductors were sent to Zhengzhou Railway Vocational and Technical College in China for a six-month training program. These conductors previously received one year of training within Ethiopia from Chinese professionals. This goal of the training program is to help local Ethiopian staff to completely take over operations of the Ethiopia-Djibouti rail line. The training lasted for a total of two and a half years, with one section of training hosted in Ethiopia and another in China, with the training including theoretical, practical, and physical components. This training initiative appears to be a part of the 2016 China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC) and China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) Ethiopia-Djibouti Railway Operation and Management Agreement. The agreement specified that the CREC-CCECC consortium (also known as the CCECC-CREC JV and 中土集团与中铁二局亚吉铁路联营体公司) would provide two years of technical support during the gradual handover of management duties to EDR in 2024.