Kenya, China Sign Six Key Agreements to Boost Bilateral Ties

Kenya and China on Thursday signed six key bilateral agreements aimed at boosting ties between the two nations.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who is on a two-day official State visit to Kenya, oversaw the signing of the agreements alongside Kenya’s Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Raychelle Omamo.

The six deals include new partnerships in trade and agriculture where Kenya will export fish and avocados to the Chinese market. Also signed was a memorandum of understanding on strengthening investment cooperation in the digital economy between the countries.

Others include a handover certificate on Emergency Humanitarian Food Aid Program between China and Kenya and an agreement on Economic and Technical Cooperation.

Omamo and Wang also discussed the global Covid-19 situation, the joint efforts fighting the disease, as well as consolidating economic collaboration during the pandemic and post-Covid-19 period.

During the signing in Mombasa, Wang announced that China would give Kenya a Sh51 billion grant, donate 10 million Covid-19 vaccines, and 12,000 tonnes of rice to help needy families weather the pandemic.

China further pledged to establish a working group to look into issues of tariff and non-tariff barriers in order to address the trade deficit that is in favor of China.
 
“We agreed to work together to promote investments from Chinese enterprises in areas of agro-processing, textiles and apparels, leather processing, footwear, iron and steel and machinery, furniture and wood, electronic assembly, auto assembly, construction, pharmaceutical, oil, and gas,” CS Omamo noted.

Omamo and Wang also discussed collaboration in Big-data strategy, ICT hardware and software development, e-government and service delivery, cyber and information security and capacity building and technology transfer.