second phase to the expansion scheme, but as yet no details have been announced. Whatever they turn out to be, the government will still have to deal with the fundamental issue of lack of space in the present port site.

This they are beginning to do. In February 2017 the government announced it would fast-track the development of a 500-hectare “inland container depot”, a place to store containers away from the cramped port site, at the small town of Ruvu in Pwani Region.

An inland satellite of the port at Ruvu may reduce the amount of trucks snarling through Dar to get to the docks.

But what about from Ruvu onward? Here we come to the main wrinkle concerning the future of the port: its rail link to the interior ofthe country, and the continent.

Like its neighbour to the north, Kenya, Tanzania has its own plan for a standard gauge railway megaproject, costed at around £9bn, running more than 2,000km from Dar es Salaam to Isaka in the north of the country, then onward to Rwanda, Burundi and the DRC (see map above).

But there are signs of a rift between the new government of President John Magufuli and Chinese entities who had been signed on to build the railway.

Under a previous administration, in June 2015, Tanzania signed accords with a consortium of Chinese firms led by China Railway Materials to build it. But after Magufuli came to office in November 2015 those accords were dropped.

Nevertheless, in July 2016 the Export-Import Bank of China (Exim) agreed a £7.6bn loan