Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Ming. [Photo/kbctv.co.ke]
China has rubbished accusations that Kenya is borrowing beyond its capacity to set up projects like the Standard Gauge Railway.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Ming, said the construction was an investment that will bring rewards to Kenya in the long run.
Ming who arrived in the country Monday for the launch of the new railway addressed the media Friday at a Nairobi hotel further added the SGR project is an investment that will give money back since its the largest infrastructural project in Kenya and it will lead to economic growth of the whole region.
China provided 90 per cent of the 327 billion shillings, in loan, spent to build the 472km line between Mombasa and Nairobi.
At the same time Ming refuted claims circulating on social media that the locomotives used to propel trains on the standard gauge railway are refurbishments of old models.
He said china abhors the export of any used item and that there was no chance that a previously used machine could find its way to Kenya.
Ming, who was China’s ambassador to Kenya between 2006 and 2009, said, it makes more economic sense for china to build a new locomotive instead refurbishing the old ones, because refurbishing needs more energy and money compared to building a new one in China.