Photo shows Chinese Ambassador to Kenya Sun Baohong delivering a speech on June 7, 2018 in Nairobi during a ceremony to launch a digital TV project by Chinese company Startimes in Kenya. (Xinhua/Wang Teng)
NAIROBI, June 8 (Xinhua) -- As Kenya strives to achieve the Big Four Agenda, China pledges continued support by providing strong boost for the implementation of the development package, the new Chinese Ambassador to Kenya Sun Baohong said Thursday.
"Over the past half a century, China has financed nearly 100 projects in Kenya through grants, interest-free and concessional loans, supporting its infrastructure, agriculture, health, education, human resource and environmental protection, etc.," Sun said in Nairobi during a ceremony on Thursday to launch a digital TV project in Kenya.
The project is part of the "Access to Satellite TV for 10,000 African Villages" initiative carried out by Chinese company StarTimes, which aims to narrow the huge information gap of African countries by giving rural communities equal access to TV content as their urban counterparts.
Sun said the relationship between the two countries was upgraded to comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership in May last year, thereby charting the course for the greater and deeper development of relations.
The Chinese government will fund the construction of China-Africa Teacher's College of Vocational Education and also upgrade the Kenya Railway Training Institute, according to Sun.
The envoy noted that the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) plays a leading role in the advancement of Big Four Agenda and has already created about 46,000 local jobs, in addition to cutting the transportation cost between the two cities by some 40 percent.
The modern railway project has also increased Kenya's gross domestic product (GDP) by about 1.5 percent.
Sun said the people-to-people interaction will see China provide more training opportunities in the areas of manufacturing, infrastructure, agriculture and health as well as more scholarships for Kenyan students to study in Chinese universities.
She said 2018 is a year of historic importance to the development of China-Africa and China-Kenya relations.
"We shall work even more closely to ensure that our bilateral cooperation will correspond to the implementation of the Big Four Agenda, and bring more tangible benefits for people of both countries," said the diplomat.
The Kenyan government's development agenda includes universal healthcare, manufacturing, affordable housing and food security.