Casablanca-Algiers-Tunis: AfDB brings back $3.8 billion train project

The document, posted online by the AfDB on June 26, 2026, officially concludes a preparatory study on the technical, economic, environmental, social and institutional feasibility of the railway corridor between Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.

Experts notably studied the modernization of the Fez-Oujda line, the rehabilitation of the Oujda-Akid Abbas border section, the creation of a new link between Annaba and Jendouba, as well as the modernization of the Jendouba-Jedeida route, near Tunis.

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The complete line would extend for approximately 2,300 kilometers. The program provides for upgrading or doubling certain sections, their electrification at 2 × 25 kV, as well as the installation of the Level 2 European ERTMS signaling system.

The cost of $3.8 billion corresponds to the estimate communicated when the project was presented in 2019. The current database of the continental PIDA program, led by the African Union and AUDA-NEPAD, now rounds the required investment up to $4 billion.

A study completed, but no construction work announced

The publication of this report does not, however, mean that the AfDB has just granted $3.8 billion to the three countries. It confirms the completion of the study financed by the Bank and makes scenarios available for the governance, financing, implementation and operation of the corridor.

The project officially remains classified at the preparatory stage in AUDA-NEPAD’s African infrastructure database. No overall financing, construction contract or commissioning schedule has yet been announced.

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The main obstacle remains political above all. The line would have to cross the land border between Morocco and Algeria, which has been closed since 1994, while Algiers severed diplomatic relations with Rabat in 2021. The occasional openings of the Zouj Bghal crossing observed in recent months have concerned only repatriations, far from a genuine reopening of the Moroccan-Algerian border.

The AfDB is therefore not yet launching the Casablanca-Algiers-Tunis train. But by publishing the study’s completion report, it is officially bringing back a regional project worth several billion dollars, whose implementation now depends less on engineers than on a rapprochement between Rabat and Algiers.