Inaugurated in October 2016, the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway, linking Ethiopia’s capital of Addis Ababa with Djibouti, is the first electrified railway in Africa. It is the first electrified international railroad to be wholly financed, designed, constructed, supervised, and operated by Chinese enterprises in a foreign country. The main equipment and locomotives for the rail line are also Chinese-produced.

　　Builders of the railway faced a shortage of materials for embankments in the process of construction. Long-distance transportation of such materials was not only costly but also unreliable. Considering the abundant volcanic slag in the surrounding areas of the project site, CREC took an innovative approach and mixed volcanic slag with clay as the material for embankment construction. The method was later introduced to other CREC rail projects in Ethiopia, which helped improve efficiency while reducing construction costs.