OREANDA-NEWS. June 16, 2014. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, along with presidents or foreign ministers of Rwanda, Uganda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Burundi witnessed the signing of the financing agreement on "Mombasa-Nairobi Railway" undertaken by CRBC at the Office of the President of Kenya, with a contract value of 3.804 billion US dollars. CCCC President Chen Fenjian and CCCC President Assistant & CRBC Chairman Wen Gang were present.

At the signing ceremony, Li said Mombasa-Nairobi Railway is a major project in Sino-African efforts to build Africa's high-speed railway, highway and regional aviation networks from sub-regional cooperation. He required that CCCC would elaborately construct Mombasa-Nairobi Railway, provide needed and quality-assured equipment to the African side, and provide operation management trainings to local employees. Also, he required that the Chinese participants should observe local laws and customs and perform social responsibility in terms of project communication, human communication and heart-to-heart communication. After the agreement was signed, Li said, "Today we witness the signing of the agreement on Mombasa-Nairobi Railway, a major project. This is just a good beginning, China is willing to work with Kenya to make the railway promote the Africa' sub-region interconnection and become a model for East Africa's three-dimensional traffic network.

The leaders of East African countries said Mombasa-Nairobi Railway is Kenya's first railway built in recent century, which will further perfect East Africa's railway network, advance East Africa's interconnection and integrated construction and promote the economic development of East African countries. They pledged concerted efforts with China to build up the railway as early as possible to benefit locals.

Mombasa-Nairobi Railway undertaken by CRBC under CCCC has been Kenya's largest project since its dependence, as well as the first new railway built in recent century. With a main length of 480 kilometers, the project will entirely be implemented according to "Chinese standards". After the project is complete, the time for traveling from Mombasa to Nairobi will reduce from a dozen hours to over 4 hours. The project's construction will create nearly 30,000 jobs for Kenya, thus effectively promoting Kenya's economic and social development.