evidence: Southern Tanzania’s coal and gas-rich region which is part of the Mtwara Development Corridor is to see the construction of a new railway line from Mtwara to Mbamba-Bay. There are huge hopes that this new Chinese built railway – 40 years after TAZARA, will foster economic development in the region. [...] The Mtwara to Mbamba Bay railway construction comes almost 40 years after the completion of the 1,860km Tanzania and Zambia Railway (TAZARA – popularly known as the Uhuru Railway), a US$ 500 million turnkey project built by the Chinese linking Dar es Salaam and the city of New Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia. [...] According to the data from NDC that were made available to this reporter, there are coalfields at Mbamba Bay located on the shores of Lake Nyasa across from Nkhata Bay in Malawi with a total reserve of 29 million tons. The project with proven deposits of 2.4 million tons would be ideal as a small-scale mining operation of some 75,000 metric tons per year thus generating an annual turnover of TShs. 4.2 billion.