China has agreed to grant market access to Kenya’s agricultural products, President William Ruto announced on Tuesday following a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Ruto, who is attending the ninth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Summit in Beijing, revealed that the agreement was made during discussions with President Xi ahead of the summit.
“During talks with President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, ahead of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Summit, President Xi agreed to grant access for Kenya’s agricultural produce to the Chinese market,” Ruto shared in a post on X.
Ruto also mentioned that the expansion of the Mombasa-Naivasha Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) line was discussed during his meeting with President Xi.
“We also agreed to discuss regional infrastructure projects, such as the expansion of the SGR and the Rironi-Mau Summit-Malaba dual carriageway,” the President noted on X.
The $3.6 billion SGR is one of the key infrastructure projects financed by China in Kenya, alongside the Nairobi Expressway.
In May this year, the Kenyan government announced its intention to raise over $5.3 billion (approximately Ksh.720 billion at the time) to extend the SGR line from Naivasha to the Kenya-Uganda border town of Malaba.
Ruto’s predecessor, Uhuru Kenyatta, was unable to secure $3.68 billion in 2019 to fund the railroad’s extension to Malaba.
At the time, China emphasized the importance of Uganda’s involvement to connect South Sudan and Rwanda to Kenya’s Indian Ocean port city of Mombasa, indicating that without it, the SGR’s viability would be questionable.
Instead, Kenyatta secured $400 million to upgrade Kenya’s colonial-era metre-gauge railway to Malaba.
