The authorities in the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia have approved the overall design for a monorail that BYD Co. Ltd of China proposes to build to serve the state capital, Salvador, the China News Service (CNS) reports.

The Chinese state-run news agency says the Chinese maker of electric vehicles and the state transport company in Bahia formally agreed on the design last week.

The report says the monorail will be 23.28 km long — 19.2 kilometres for the first phase and 4.08 kilometres for the second phase — and have 26 stations, and that it will connect with the metropolitan railway Salvador already has.

BYD made the winning bid to build the monorail in May 2018, signed in February 2019 a deal do develop it, and construction work is due to start soon, CNS says.

The project, SkyRail, is the first type of this project to be undertaken by BYD in the overseas market, the report said.