President Uhuru Kenyatta on Thursday appeared to have
embarked on his final leg of globetrotting before the year ends when he
flew straight from Paris to hold bilateral talks with Chinese President
Xi Jinping in South Africa.
President Xi is attending the second summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Johannesburg.
Although his government has been under pressure to
cut foreign travel expense, Mr Kenyatta’s office has frequently defied
the austerity guidelines.
A dispatch from the Presidential Strategic
Communication Unit said Mr Kenyatta — fresh from Paris Climate Change
talks would meet President Xi by late Thursday.
The Jubilee administration has forged closer ties
with Chinese government building on a foundation laid by his predecessor
Mwai Kibaki. A newly elected Mr Kenyatta made his maiden State visit
outside Africa to China in August 2013.
Among key outcomes of the State visit were
commitments by China to support Kenya’s development and establishment of
a Comprehensive Cooperation Partnership (CCP) of equality, mutual
trust, mutual benefit and win-win outcome.
In September Kenya signed a deal with China that
will see the Standard Gauge Railway project extended to Naivasha. The
initial phase of the project was from Mombasa to Nairobi.
Last year Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visited Kenya
where 17 agreements that touched on various segments of the Kenya’s
economy were signed.
Key among them was the financing of the
Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway project, which has employed more
than 25,000 Kenyan engineers and workers.
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