Rusumo International Bridge project launched its first phase

Kigali, 5th November, 2013-The Rusumo Bride is located at Rusumo Border Post on the Central Corridor. The first phase that was launched equals to 8 meters and the second phase of 12 meters will be launched on 30th November 2013.Of the leading economic corridors on the African Continent, the Central Corridor is an important economic corridor in the geographical zone of the East African Community (EAC) along with the Northern Corridor which links Kenya and Uganda. The Central Corridor starts at Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, providing a crucial physical distribution to Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi. As such, it functions as an essential physical distribution pipeline for landlocked countries. In 2010, the EAC abolished intra-regional tariffs to vitalize intra-regional trade while seeking assistance for introduction of one stop border post (OSBP) system capable of simultaneously handling departure and entry procedures at border points to eliminate the bottlenecks of economic corridors.


The existing Rusumo Bridge is an arch bridge whose construction commenced in 1966 with completion in 1972. It has now reached almost 40 years of service life. Given the present restrictions on the axle load and the use of only a single lane at a time, its replacement is required to cope with expected increase of the traffic volume in the coming years. Meanwhile, the border facilities at Rusumo are insufficient: the small number of parking spaces and insufficient staff capacity to properly manage the border operations.

The border checking of vehicles at Rusumo mainly relies on papers while physical verification is mainly conducted at the dry port in Kigali The elimination of the present traffic congestion through the introduction of an OSBP system will greatly improve the efficiency of cargo transportation between Rwanda and Tanzania with the end result of an increase of the physical distribution volume and a reduction of the transportation cost.

The Ministry of Infrastructure through the Rwanda Transport Development Agency (RTDA) contracted DAIHO Corporation, a Japanese Contractor, to carry out the construction works of the new Rusumo Bridge (82m) and One Stop Border Post (OSBP) facilities between the Republic of Rwanda and the United Republic of Tanzania under Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) grant aid. The Bridge is expected to be fully operational early March, 2014.

It is in this regards, The Ministry of Infrastructure (MININFRA) on behalf of the Government of Rwanda, launched the erection of the steel girder beams of the new Rusumo Bridge between the Republic of Rwanda and the United Republic of Tanzania. This event took place on November 05th, 2013 at Rusumo border post at 1:00 p.m.

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