![\"Ethiopia](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Eritrea.png?fit=780%2C780&ssl=1\")
\nEthiopia has begun a feasibility study for a railway that would tie its north, east, and centre to the Eritrean ports of Assab and Massawa. Finance Minister Ahmed Shide told Italian officials and business delegates on Thursday, at the Ethio-Italian Business Forum, that the project was now being pursued. He said the World Bank Group was behind the study. Asked what the line would cost, he said the figure would come from the study\u2019s results. Ethiopia already had rail, road, or power links with Djibouti, Kenya, Sudan, and South Sudan. A line to the Eritrean coast would add the ports that the 2018 peace had put back into political reach.<\/p>\n\n
Italy\u2019s deputy foreign minister, Emanuela Del Re, told The Reporter her government would consider taking part. On the sidelines of the forum she met Eritrea\u2019s foreign minister, Osman Saleh, and Yemane Gebreab, presidential adviser and political affairs chief. Ethiopia\u2019s foreign minister, Gedu Andargachew, was with them at the Hyatt Regency. Del Re called the meeting a coincidence. She said Rome had recalibrated its wish to partner with Ethiopia and support its development. Ahmed said Italy had provided 150 million euros for development projects. Italy had also pledged help to preserve the Aksum obelisks, one of which was taken during the occupation of 1936 to 1941, returned in 2005, and raised again in 2008.<\/p>\n
About 40 major Italian companies attended the forum. Ahmed briefed them on partial privatisation of Ethiopian Airlines and the logistics sector, and on plans for Ethio Telecom, sugar plants, and other state assets. Carlo Ferro, president of the Italian Trade Agency, said the mission ended with satisfaction, and that Italian firms had invested 590 million euros and wanted to invest more. Executives of the Automotive Manufacturing Company of Ethiopia, a Fiat joint venture, raised hard-currency shortages. Ahmed promised them a meeting. The railway study was the item that reached beyond the forum floor, toward a border that had been a war front for a generation.<\/p>\n