Ivory Coast said it had signed an initial agreement with a consortium including France's Bouygues and South Korea's Hyundai and Dongsan Engineering to build a one billion euro ($1.4 billion) urban rail line in Abidjan.

French-speaking West Africa's largest economy has been emerging from a decade-long political crisis that ended in a brief civil war in 2011, and the government is now seeking to improve long neglected infrastructure.

The proposed project would involve construction of a 37 kilometre (23 mile) rail line from Abidjan's international airport in the south of the city, through the city centre to its northern suburbs.

The line would transport an estimated 300,000 passengers a day, alleviating the traffic jams that currently plague the city of around five million inhabitants, the government said in a statement.

"The estimated cost of the project is around one billion euros," an official with Ivory Coast's transport ministry said, declining to give a timetable for when construction was expected to begin.

DTP Terrassement and Bouygues Travaux Publics, both units of French industrial group Bouygues; Hyundai Motor Group subsidiary Hyundai Rotem ; and Dongsan signed the agreement with the government on Friday, a press release stated.

Financing for the project is to come from the private partners, according to the statement. The consortium members will hold a minimum 40 percent stake in the rail line's operating company.