NAIROBI, June 25 (Xinhua) -- Kenya will on Tuesday host a regional summit aimed at speeding up development of infrastructure in the East Africa region, a government official said on Monday.
Kenya's State House spokesman Manoah Esipisu said the 14th Summit of the Northern Corridor Integration Projects (NCIP) will be attended by host, President Uhuru Kenyatta, and his counterparts Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Rwanda's Paul Kagame as well as a Special Envoy of President Salva Kiir of South Sudan.
"During the Nairobi meeting, the leaders are expected to review the progress made in the implementation of the various resolutions reached at during the 13th Summit held in Kampala, Uganda on April 23, 2016," Esipisu said in a statement issued in Nairobi.
The Northern corridor projects are designed to link the land locked countries of Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan and Burundi to Kenya's Indian Ocean Port of Mombasa. The corridor also serves the Democratic Republic of Congo and northern Tanzania.
The NCIP which is a multilateral development initiative established in 2013 is aimed at speeding up development in the region, particularly the improvement of infrastructure for ease of movement of people, goods and services in the region.
Esipisu said the leaders will assess and provide leadership on the progress being made in power generation, transmission and interconnectivity.
"Among the key projects expected to feature prominently during the meeting is the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) where significant progress has been made with Kenya having successfully completed the Mombasa-Nairobi line and embarked on the Nairobi-Naivasha section which is now at 50 percent completion," he said.
The State House spokesman said a commercial contract for the Naivasha-Kisumu-Malaba sections and a modern port at Kisumu has already been signed with the China Communication Construction Company.
He said preliminary engineering design of the new SGR line from Kampala to Kigali, Rwanda's capital, was completed in January while in South Sudan, preparation for a bankable feasibility study for the Nimule-Juba SGR line is on-going and is expected to be complete by December this year.
The African leaders will also review progress on ICT and oil refinery.
