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NAIROBI (Xinhua)--
As Kenya strives to achieve the Big Four
Agenda, China pledges continued support by providing
strong boost for the implementation of the development
package, the new Chinese Ambassador to Kenya Sun Baohong
said Thursday.
“Over the
past half a century, China has financed nearly 100
projects in Kenya through grants, interest-free and
concessional loans, supporting its infrastructure,
agriculture, health, education, human resource and
environmental protection, etc.,” Sun said in Nairobi
during a ceremony on Thursday to launch a digital TV
project in Kenya.
The project
is part of the “Access to Satellite TV for 10,000
African Villages” initiative carried out by Chinese
company StarTimes, which aims to narrow the huge
information gap of African countries by giving rural
communities equal access to TV content as their urban
counterparts.
Sun said the
relationship between the two countries was upgraded to
comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership in May
last year, thereby charting the course for the greater
and deeper development of relations.
The Chinese
government will fund the construction of China-Africa
Teacher’s College of Vocational Education and also
upgrade the Kenya Railway Training Institute, according
to Sun.
The envoy
noted that the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway (SGR)
plays a leading role in the advancement of Big Four
Agenda and has already created about 46,000 local jobs,
in addition to cutting the transportation cost between
the two cities by some 40 percent.
The modern
railway project has also increased Kenya’s gross
domestic product (GDP) by about 1.5 percent.
Sun said the
people-to-people interaction will see China provide more
training opportunities in the areas of manufacturing,
infrastructure, agriculture and health as well as more
scholarships for Kenyan students to study in Chinese
universities.
She said
2018 is a year of historic importance to the development
of China-Africa and China-Kenya relations.
“We shall
work even more closely to ensure that our bilateral
cooperation will correspond to the implementation of the
Big Four Agenda, and bring more tangible benefits for
people of both countries,” said the diplomat.
The Kenyan
government’s development agenda includes universal
healthcare, manufacturing, affordable housing and food
security. |
