At least 2,000 youth are set to be trained in the operation and maintenance of the Sh372 billion standard gauge railway (SGR). According to Transport secretary James Macharia, civil works on the construction of the 472km railway line from Mombasa to Nairobi were completed in November last year. Kenya has started to receive trains and other equipment ahead of the commissioning of the project on June 1. To sustain the services, he said, the youth will be trained on operation and maintenance of the railway. He said that 300 locals are being trained at the Kenya Railways Institute in Nairobi while 500 more are expected to complete training before the end of this year. Mr Macharia said 25 students are expected to undertake five-year undergraduate studies at Beijing Jiatong University in China while another 75 will join the same programme between this year and 2018. Wagons Mr Macharia said the government has already identified John Holland Limited, based in Australia, to operate the railway. “The company will operate the railway for a 10-year period as it has vast experience including managing two thirds of Australia’s railway,” he said. In an interview with the Business Daily at Moi International Airport, Mombasa, Mr Macharia said the railway will be completed 18 months ahead of schedule. Last week Kenya received the first batch of six trains at Mombasa port manufactured by China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC). The government is expected to receive 50 more by May. Mr Macharia said that 1,620 freight...

Hyacinth has paralysed business at the Kisumu port after the weed engulfed the shores of Lake Victoria. Operations at the port have been brought to a halt with ships and vessels transporting goods across the region trapped by the weed. Movement of boats and fishing vessels has also been restricted by the hyacinth carpet. The port receives and processes goods from countries across, the region including Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda. The Kenya Maritime Authority yesterday said the re-emergence of the algae has grounded business. Boaz Ogolla, a maritime officer at the port, said the prolonged dry season was worsening the situation because it could lead to an unprecedented growth of the weed. The weed thrives in hot weather. “Our operations have been grounded due to the weed. We have, for instance, a ship which had been loaded with fertilisers for transport to Tanzania but cannot leave the port because of the weed,” Mr Ogolla said. “The hyacinth easily grows in still waters in full sun. This is the case we are witnessing on the lake. Matters have also been complicated by the lack of strong waves allowing the hyacinth to sprout on still waters,” he added. The port, rated by shippers as the best in East Africa owing to its strategic location, has been operating below capacity for the past four years, a situation that has been compounded by lack of modern equipment. Railway line With a handling capacity of about 1,000 tonnes of cargo per day, the facility currently...

Full completion of the Malaba border post is set for April, financiers have said, raising hope for faster clearance of goods and passenger between Kenya and Uganda. The one-stop border post has been functioning with sub optimal infrastructure since its commissioning last June. Delays in completion of the project have been occasioned by end World Bank funding in September, at a time when infrastructure for the Sh533 million project were not fully concluded. The World Bank funding was limited in time. Variations to the contract were also left without funding. Trademark East Africa (TMA) injected additional funds into the project to complete the outstanding works and variations bringing the final contract sum to Sh632 million, excluding claims. “Malaba last bits and pieces of infrastructure will be completed by March /April this year on the Kenya side while the access road to the new bridge from the Uganda side will be completed in April 2017,” said Sjoerd Visser, TMA one-stop border posts director. He said the developments would allow the use of the new dual carriage weigh bridge and separate entry as well as exit roads into Kenya and Uganda. Current tedious clearance procedures at both sides often lead to delays and congestion at the border point. To date, five one-stop border posts have been completed in East Africa including Busia, Holili Taveta, Mutukula (Uganda/Tanzania) Kagitumba Mirama Hills (Rwanda/ Uganda) and Kobero Kabanga (Burundi/Tanzania). The completed border posts are part of the 15 initiated by the East African Community (EAC) One-Stop-Border-Posts...

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan 16 – Kenya Railways Corporation (KR) has come to the defence of the construction of the Standard Gauge Railway following concerns over the cost compared to other railway projects in the continent. The Corporation Managing Director Atanus Maina says the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) is built based on the needs of the country which is to primarily ease the moving goods to and from the port of Mombasa. Speaking to Capital FM Business, Maina says Kenya’s objectives for the railway are different from those of other countries like Ethiopia, and that the dynamics of rolling out the massive infrastructure projects are different. “Ethiopia are constructing class two (type) railway dictated by their demands. Their cargo volumes are less than 10 million tonnes, so we cannot do a class two here. The port of Djibouti does less than 7 million tonnes while the port of Mombasa is doing nearly 30 million tonnes per annum. Our SGR has a capacity of about 22 million tonnes per year, with double stack capability,” he explained, adding that the cost implications will differ. Mombasa Super Bridge/SkyscraperCity“Ethiopian corridor has enough level crossings as it passes through areas where they don’t have a lot of people. For Kenya, the area is heavily inhabited…we had to do a lot of bridges and we needed to have more stations and land compensation, this will definitely have a huge impact on cost,” he noted. Maina said Kenya has 33 crossing stations with overpasses in large sections to allow...

The Ministry of Trade and Industrialization has rubbished claims of a January deadline for the East African Community to sign a trade partnership deal with the European Union. The EAC heads of state were scheduled to hold the Heads of State Summit in early January but that has been put off until mid February. The regional trading bloc was expected to use the summit to get a way forward on whether to sign the economic partnership agreement (EPA) with the EU after years of back and forth negotiations. Trade Cabinet Secretary Adan Mohamed however said there was no timeline set with the European Union as to when the deal will be signed, despite having already missing the October 2016 deadline. “I want to e very clear that there is no January deadline to sign (EPA),” Mr Mohamed said on the sidelines of the ongoing CCAfrica Food Standards conference. Kenya is the only member of the East African Community that stands to lose with trade restrictions being imposed by the EU. According to Mr Mohamed, presidents of the five EAC countries are yet to agree on a suitable date to hold the meeting. “The heads of state summit will happen at the right time when the diaries of the heads of states will allow. That (EPA) will be discussed at the summit,” he said, while responding to journalists. The European Union had in October said it would allow for extended negations between the five partner states that now appear to behind...

The East African Community (EAC) is yet to make any meaningful gains since it became active some 20 years ago, a new report shows. According to the International Monetary Fund report, implementation of the customs union and the common market have not led to “a major increase in economic and financial integration”, with the trade bloc’s member countries still looking far and wide for their imports. The report, titled Integrating Markets for Goods, Labour and Capital in the East African Community, identified inhibitive laws and regulations by member countries as the main detriments to integration. The region, the report says, still imports goods such as industrial supplies, fuel and lubricants, transport equipment parts and accessories, processed foods and beverages from outside the region. Some of these goods are available in the region. “The share of intra-EAC imports in total imports has not increased in the past 15 years and most imports continue to come from outside sub-Saharan Africa,” says the report, which found that more than 85 per cent of total imports into the region come from outside the EAC. It is mostly small landlocked countries of Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda that have higher ratios of GDP of imports from the EAC. For Kenya and Tanzania, says the report, the “ratios are very small”. Indeed, goods that the landlocked countries import from Tanzania and Kenya are mostly imports sourced from outside the region. However, this arrangement is bound to change with some countries such as Uganda opting to fly their...

ReportsWorldwide has announced the addition of a new report title KENYA – INFRASTRUCTURE AUG 2016 to its growing collection of premium market research reports. This report provides a comprehensive industry profile, analysis and outlook of Kenya’s infrastructure sector. Kenya witnessed a thriving building and construction sector in 2015 registering a growth of 13.6% in value added. This growth was on account of the on-going public infrastructure projects and private sector development in the real estate sector and is mirrored in the increased cement consumption. Kenyan infrastructure sector is amongst top-five biggest and one of the fastest growing industries in the country and one of the biggest contributors to the country’s GDP. Kenya also provides the largest market in East Africa for construction industry’s products, such as cement. The country’s annual production of cement represents 53% of East Africa’s total capacity. During 2015, Kenyan cement market continued to grow strongly driven by the increased Government investment in the infrastructure segment and increased housing sector demand. Cement production went up by 8.0% from 5.88 million tonnes in 2014 to 6.35 million tonnes in 2015. The demand for cement continues to be robust and is predicted to more than double over the next five years To view a detailed description and Table of Contents please visit: www.reportsworldwide.com/report/kenya—infrastructure-au… The report provides a SWOT analysis, full overview of the sector and its segments with a focus on the sector’s growth and value. It analyses the country’s residential, commercial, transport and energy infrastructure, and provides an...

Uptake of the new maritime insurance law compelling importers to buy policies from local underwriters has been slower than expected. This comes as the Government struggles to come up with modalities to ease its implementation by industry players as well as Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA). The new law came into effect on January 1. “As a Government, we have asked KRA to work with stakeholders in the insurance industry for everybody to start feeling the effects of the law. It is not an easy thing, but I am sure in the short run, proper modalities to implement the law will be put in place,” said Maritime and Shipping Affairs Principal Secretary Nancy Karigithu. Ms Karigithu spoke yesterday during the signing of an agreement between Kenya and Denmark that will see local players in the maritime and shipping sector get advanced training from Denmark for a period of five years. Insurance firms are eyeing Sh17 billion in revenue in the wake of the new marine law. DEMONSTRATED CAPACITY Industry estimates show the new requirement will push marine cargo insurance premiums handled by Kenyan underwriters from Sh2.9 billion in 2015 to over Sh20 billion going forward. About 90 per cent of cargo import insurance is currently handled by foreign firms, with importers usually paying premiums as part of a package (cost, insurance and freight) to the exporter who handles the underwriting. Data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics shows Kenya imported goods worth $15.7 billion (Sh1.6 trillion) in 2015, 90 per...

Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) data last week showed Kenya’s exports to Uganda had declined by a massive 20 per cent in the first 10 months of 2016. The Leading Economic Indicators report has raised fears that the country is losing its grip on its biggest market for locally produced products. In 2015, Kenya’s exports to Uganda were valued at Sh68.6 billion, up from Sh60.7 billion in 2014. And while Kenya’s total exports between January and October 2015 were worth Sh52.2 billion, this dropped in the 10 months to October last year to Sh41.8 billion. The decline is an indicator of the changing face of trade relations between Kenya and Uganda. Evidence of this shift can be seen in Nairobi’s city centre. Amid the beehive of commercial activity in downtown Nairobi, one type of business stands out: the large number of shops selling brand new shoes, handbags and clothes. Kampala industrialising Demand from shoppers for this merchandise is so popular that most stores occupy the space that two or three stalls would. These products are made in China, and like most Chinese goods, they are cheap. However, most of these items are not flown or shipped into Kenya from China – they are flown directly from China to Uganda’s city of Entebbe. From there, they are brought into Kenya. This was unheard of a few years ago when a ship carrying merchandise from the Asian country would dock at the port of Mombasa. Ugandan traders would then make their...

IN SUMMARY Public health and veterinary officers at Busia and Malaba border posts had been placed on high alert to ensure no imports of poultry products are allowed in until the situation in Entebbe has normalised. Kenya has banned importation of live birds and chicken products from Uganda following a confirmed outbreak of Bird Flu in the neighbouring country on Sunday evening. Chief Veterinary Officer Juma Ngeiywa said all public health and veterinary officers at Busia and Malaba border posts had been placed on high alert to ensure no imports of poultry products are allowed in until the situation in Entebbe has normalised. “Permits issued to chicks, eggs, poultry meat and breeding chicken importers will have to be reviewed to safeguard spread of Bird Flu to Kenya,” Dr Ngeiya said. The alert follows a Uganda government announcement that the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), which infects both animals and humans, had been detected following tests on carcasses of white winged-black tern birds that died on the shores of Lake Victoria near Entebbe at Lutembe beach on January 2. A second incident was confirmed last Sunday at Bukakata area within Masaka district, 75 kilometres from Kampala City, when carcasses of five domestic ducks and a hen tested positive to HPAI prompting re-activation of the National Task Force to co-ordinate the fight against Avian Flu. Acting General Health Services Director in Uganda Anthony Mbonye, however, allayed fears of people contracting the Avian Flu, saying the probability of bird-to-human infection was low. “Any...