Nairobi — Kenya is working with three African countries to connect the Indian and Atlantic Oceans through a trans-African railway line.
President William Ruto said Kenya, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Congo (Brazzaville) will work on the project.
The agreement will see each state put up a railway line connecting one nation to the other via border points.
Ultimately, the line will start from the coast of Kenya and end in the Congo coast, and vice versa.
“We are currently having a conversation between Kenya, Uganda, DRC, including Congo (Brazzaville) to see how we can connect the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic. I think there is only a section of a 1000 kilometers of the rail and that should be connected,” Ruto said at the African Private Sector Dialogue on the African Continental Free Trade Area in Nairobi today.
The connectivity is set to boost trade between the East and West African nations by reducing the time goods take to move within the continent as well as to America.
Currently, goods traveling to America are forced to go round the African continent via South Africa to countries in the west of Africa as well as America, impeding trade.
However, the project will make trade viable between Africa and America as well as between the regions through seamless connectivity.
“And as countries we are prepared to work on it together. That we can do our section in Kenya. Uganda are already working on their section,” the President said.
“We are discussing with the Government of DRC to see how together we can get the resources to get the a 1000 kilometers in the DRC and connect it to the Congo River and transport our goods…..,” he added.
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