OREANDA-NEWS. March 02, 2011. Mitsui & Co., Ltd. ("Mitsui", head office : Tokyo, Japan, President and CEO : Masami Iijima) signed a contract through its subsidiary, Venus Railway Solutions (Pty) Ltd., for the supply of 32 new electric locomotives with Transnet Limited ("Transnet"), a transport and logistics company wholly owned by the South African government, on 17 December, 2010, and it is effective on 2 March 2011. The contract amount is about JPY 19 billion (USD 230 million).

These locomotives will be utilized for an 860 km iron ore line which runs between Sishen, which has some of the largest iron ore mines in the world, and Saldanha port. The electrical portion of these locomotives will be supplied by Toshiba Corporation ("Toshiba"), and the mechanical portion, such as bogies and bodies, will be supplied by Union Carriage and Wagon Company (Pty) Ltd. ("UCW"), a rolling stock manufacturer in South Africa.

Mitsui together with Toshiba and UCW has supplied 75 electric locomotives to Transnet in the 1980s, which still have a high reliability and availability, and received additional JPY 65 billion order for 154 electric locomotives in 2006. Because of that achievement, Mitsui succeeded to receive this new order of 32 new electric locomotives for the iron ore line on 17 December 2010.

South Africa, hosted and successfully operated the FIFA World Cup in 2010, is the world's leading producer of major mineral resources and is developing its economy on the strength of high resource demand. South Africa has been intensively investing in its infrastructure, including railway transportation and ports, to reinforce its rapid growth.

Under strong global demand for mineral resources especially iron ore and coal, Transnet is implementing its investment plan to improve the railway transportation infrastructure, and, thus, Transnet will continue to procure electric locomotives.

Countries in southern Africa, as typified by South Africa, abound in natural resources and have a great demand for improved transportation infrastructure relating to natural resources. Mitsui, in cooperation with Toshiba, intend to expand their share of the locomotive market in South Africa and other African countries for a contribution to the economical growth of those countries.

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