Tag: Standard Gauge Railway
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China’s Relatively Small Share of Kenya’s Total Public Debt
Kenya's total public debt now stands at $72.2 billion with $6.92 billion or just 9% owed to Chinese creditors, according to new figures from the Treasury in Nairobi. When measured against Kenya's total external, China's share ...
It Can Be Hard to Tell If Kenya Is Managing Its Debts Well or If It’s In Danger of Debt Distress… Or Both
Confusing, even contradictory messages have been coming out over the past week about Kenya's debt sustainability. On the one hand, the Treasury is reporting that debt servicing obligations have fallen by $634 million, including to the China Exim Bank, due to deferrals and repayments ...
Kenya’s Parliament Launches Inquiry Into Chinese Contracts
The months-long dispute over the transparency of Chinese infrastructure contracts in Kenya intensified on Monday when the parliament launched an official inquiry to identify "directors and/or representatives" involved in those deals. Parliamentary opponents of President Uhuru Kenyatta, led by National Assembly ...
Kenya’s SGR Scandal Isn’t Going Away
This week saw the announcement that the United Kingdom’s international development investment arm, the CDC Group, will invest $1 billion in Kenyan infrastructure. This will include funding a new rail transit hub in Nairobi. It’s interesting that the UK is leaning into ...
Citing National Security, Kenya (Again) Refuses to Release SGR Contracts With China
Kenya's transportation minister Joseph Njoroge reaffirmed the government's longstanding refusal to make public the $3.9 billion contract with the state-owned China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) to build the Standard Gauge Railway. Njoroge's cited a host of reasons for rejecting the ...
China’s Share of Kenya’s Total Debt Shrinks as Borrowing Surges
Kenya's Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) is forecasting the country's total public debt will reach $78 billion this June and $86 billion by the same time in 2023. Meantime, China's share of the country's debts, estimated at around $6.5 billion, ...
Kenya Caught in a Potentially Dangerous Loan Repayment Cycle Due to Its SGR Debts to China
There's growing concern that the depreciating value of the Kenyan currency is tied to the country's mounting debt servicing costs to Chinese creditors. Back in July, the Kenyan Treasury began repaying the loans used to build the Standard Gauge Railway after the China Exim Bank refused the ...
China Stands Apart From Kenya’s Other Bilateral Creditors in Requiring Full Debt Repayment
While Japan, France, and Kenya's other major bilateral creditors are all giving Nairobi some breathing room during the ongoing pandemic in the form of reduced debt servicing payments, that is not the case with China. Last quarter, the Treasury transferred $266 million to Chinese creditors, mostly to ...
In State of the Nation Address, Kenyatta Called For Kenya to Become the World’s Next “Asian Miracle”
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta delivered his eighth and final State of the Nation address on Tuesday and used the occasion to justify the massive expansion of the country's debt as part of his plan to accelerate economic growth, much the same way a small group of Asian ...
Finally, Some Good News For Kenya’s Embattled Standard Gauge Railway
While Kenya struggles to repay billions of dollars of loans to the China Exim Bank used to build the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), the government is getting a badly-needed boost from higher cargo and passenger volumes. Kenya Railways this week reported ...
Anzetse Were on the Current State of China-Africa Economic Relations
China-Africa trade figures for the first eight months of the year are in and they look solid. So good, in fact, that the two sides appear on track to surpass last year's $187 billion in two-way trade. But those big numbers ...
Kenya’s Dream to Build a Modern Railway Is Turning Into an Economic Nightmare
Many Kenyans were excited about plans to build a modern railway across the country linking the port city of Mombasa and Malaba town on the Kenya-Uganda border. It was touted as a game-changer; the key to unlocking not just Kenya’s economic takeoff, but that of the entire ...