President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Ugandan counterpart Yoweri Museveni. They held talks on Tuesday at Statehouse. [Photo/UK/FB]
President Uhuru Kenyatta on Tuesday hosted his Ugandan counterpart Yoweri Museveni, in what was the first official visit since Kenyatta was sworn in for the second term.
The two leaders held cordial talks, which were also attended by Deputy President William Ruto at the Statehouse.
The leaders hailed the strong bilateral relations between the two neighbors, and committed to working to strengthen the ties even further.
They also focused on bilateral and regional issues, including progress around the Standard Gauge Railway, Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union, smooth running of the East African Community (EAC) Secretariat, regional troops in Somalia, and peace initiatives in South Sudan.
President Kenyatta briefed President Museveni on investments at the Port of Mombasa, including the operation of the second container terminal, which increased the port’s overall capacity to 1.65 million containers.
This is the first phase of a three-stage project, which, when completed, will bring the total capacity of the port to 2.7 million containers per year.
The modernization programme has resulted in reduced average time to import and export goods through the port of Mombasa - from 11 days to under 3.5 days, and work for even greater efficiency continues.
President Kenyatta also briefed President Museveni on last Saturday’s commissioning of the Inland Container Depot at Embakasi.
With the launch of the cargo rail freight on the Standard Gauge Railway, we expect that most goods will be transported from the Mombasa Port by train, starting in January 2018.
This will further shorten the time of moving goods from Mombasa to Kenya’s hinterland and neighboring countries as well as the costs for doing so by a further 30 percent.