NAIROBI, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) -- A key Kenyan dry port which was expanded using Chinese funding is boosting the east African nation's international trade, a port official said.
Kenya Ports Authority (KPA), which owns the Nairobi Inland Container Depot (ICD), said that the dry port has enabled bulk cargo from the port of Mombasa to be transported efficiently through the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) to the hinterland.
With Chinese funding, the dry port has expanded the container traffic of the ICD to reduce congestion at the port of Mombasa, ICD principal operations officer Nicholas Tendwa told Xinhua in a recent interview.
The freight lines of the 472 km Mombasa to Nairobi SGR project terminates at the ICD and has modern equipment from China that has improved the efficiency of the operations of the facility.
The dry port was established in 1984 in Nairobi as the key destination of most imported goods and its role was enhanced in May 2017 after the completion of the SGR in order to reduce congestion at the port of Mombasa and bring freight services closer to clients.
The state-of-the-art inland cargo handling facility that was upgraded by China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) was expected to decongest the port of Mombasa while lowering the cost of transporting goods.
Tendwa noted that international traders now prefer to collect their cargo from the inland dry port rather than from the Mombasa seaport.
Tendwa revealed that the inland port is also an ideal pickup point for transit goods headed to Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan and Ethiopia.
According to the port official, the dry port currently handles approximately 40 percent of all the country's imports.
