Photo shows a train running on Kenya's Mombasa-Nairobi standard gauge railway built by China. (Xinhua/Sun Ruibo)
KIGALI, June 2 (Xinhua) -- The News Times, a major newspaper in Rwanda, on Thursday published an article telling benefits of the Chinese-built Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) launched earlier this week.
The 480-km SGR stretches from the port of Mombasa to Kenya's capital Nairobi, involving a total investment of 3.8 billion U.S. dollars, which makes it Kenya's largest infrastructure project since its independence.
It is the first step in the grand plan to build an East Africa railway network that will eventually link Kenya with Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan. An extension of the Nairobi-Mombasa line, the Nairobi-Naivasha SGR, has already begun construction.
Operationalization of the SGR in Kenya could ease financing of the rest of the project to Rwanda through Uganda, the newspaper quoted Rwandan experts as saying.
The SGR, part of the Northern Corridor Integration Projects Initiative, is expected to ease and reduce the cost of movement of people and goods across the region, said the article, which was published as a headline story on the front page.
Both Rwanda and Kenya are part of the northern corridor integration initiative that includes Uganda and South Sudan. The initiative is aimed at easing trade on the route that connects Kigali to the Kenyan port of Mombasa, where over 40 percent of the country's imports are received.
Innocent Safari, Rwanda's national coordinator of Northern Corridor Integration Projects, told The New Times that the development is proof of the feasibility of the project and could ease aspects such as financing.
Safari, the former permanent secretary of Ministry of Trade, Industry and East African Community Affairs of Rwanda, said the cost of logistics is expected to drastically reduce, consequently the cost of doing business as well.
Rwanda was hoping to finalize the feasibility study this July, said Safari, adding that the project is "a big development for the entire region."
Patience Mutesi, the Rwanda country director of TradeMark East Africa, said the development is likely to trigger further price reduction, read the article.
In the past few years, a number of Chinese-built railways have appeared on the horizon of the whole African continent, including the Africa's first transnational electrified railway connecting Ethiopia and Djibouti, a 1,344-km Benguela Railway linking up Angola and Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) and the first standard gauge railway modernization project undertaken by Nigeria.
