Casablanca-Algiers-Tunis: AfDB brings back the $3.8 billion train project
The African Development Bank has just brought the old project for a train linking Casablanca, Algiers and Tunis back into the spotlight. It has published the completion report for the study devoted to rehabilitating and modernizing this trans-Maghreb line.
The document, posted online by the AfDB on June 26, 2026, officially concludes a preparatory study examining the technical, economic, environmental, social and institutional feasibility of the railway corridor between Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.
The experts notably studied the modernization of the Fès-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 over 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 basis of the continental PIDA program, led by the African Union and AUDA-NEPAD, now rounds the necessary investment up to $4 billion.
A completed study, but no construction project 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 the African infrastructure database of AUDA-NEPAD. No overall financing, construction contract or commissioning schedule has yet been announced.
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The main obstacle remains primarily political. 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 multibillion-dollar regional project whose realization now depends less on engineers than on a rapprochement between Rabat and Algiers.