President Xi's envoy to attend Kenyan railway opening

A special representative of President Xi Jinping will attend the opening ceremony of a flagship railway project in Kenya next week, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Friday.

The Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), developed by China Road and Bridge Corp, will be completed on Wednesday. State Councilor Wang Yong, Xi's special representative, will visit Kenya from Tuesday to Thursday to attend the ceremony, spokesman Lu Kang said at a news conference.

The railway, linking Kenya's largest city Nairobi with the country's second largest city Mombasa, will shorten the travel time from over 10 hours to only four.

The Mombasa-Nairobi SGR is a flagship project of the cooperation between China and Africa, and the biggest infrastructural project in Kenya since its independence.

Kenya plays a leading and exploratory role in capacity cooperation and is at the forefront of China-Africa cooperation, Lu said.

China would like to work with Kenya to implement the outcome of the Johannesburg Summit of Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, promote capacity cooperation and the Belt and Road Initiative, comprehensively strengthen cooperation in all aspects and promote bilateral relations to a new level, he added.

Zhou Jin contributed to this story.