China Railway Construction Corp, CRCC, said it has signed a new contract worth $12 billion with Nigeria to build a railway line along the West African coast. China is pushing to win railway construction projects around the world as part of plans to export its high-speed technology and lift its manufacturing sector up the value chain.

Beijing is also pumping money into the sector, with more than $100 billion worth of infrastructure projects approved in late October and early November in a bid to bolster slowing growth in the world’s second largest economy.

Meng Fengchao, chairman of CRCC, said it is a mutually beneficial project. He added that the railway project would lead to equipment exports from China worth $4 billion, including construction machinery, trains and steel products.

The project will create up to 200,000 local jobs, helping Beijing in its soft power push to gain a foothold in resource-rich regions of Africa. The coastal railway will stretch for 1,402 kilometers, linking Nigeria’s economic capital Lagos in the west with Calabar in the east, Xinhua said.