{"id":16321,"date":"2025-11-28T06:28:51","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T04:28:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/kenya-turns-to-china-for-1-5-billion-highway-expansion\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:31:31","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:31:31","slug":"kenya-turns-to-china-for-1-5-billion-highway-expansion","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/kenya-turns-to-china-for-1-5-billion-highway-expansion\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenya turns to China for $1.5 billion highway expansion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The project, split into two phases, will be financed by the partners through a mix of debt and equity using a model that is gaining traction <\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">after China&#8217;s traditional lending model raised<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> concerns <\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">over<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> borrowers&#8217; debt burdens.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">&#8220;We don&#8217;t have any room to borrow any more money,&#8221; Kefa Seda, Director General of the Public-Private Partnerships directorate at Kenya&#8217;s Finance <\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Ministry<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> told <\/span><em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Reuters<\/span><\/em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> ahead of the official launch ceremony.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The project will improve a key transport corridor that links Kenya&#8217;s port of Mombasa with its western region and neighbouring landlocked states like Uganda, via Nairobi.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">After pumping billions of Dollars into infrastructure projects, China cut its lending in Africa around 2019 as worries grew over debt sustainability in countries like Kenya.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Beijing pledged $50 billion in credit and investments over three years; however, at a summit with African leaders last year, it moved to reposition itself on the continent.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":16322,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44,26],"class_list":["post-16321","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Kenya and two Chinese state firms are launching construction of a $1.5 billion highway expansion on Friday, marking Beijing's return to major infrastructure development in the East African economy after a years-long hiatus.","published_date":null,"news_description":"Kenya and two Chinese state firms are launching construction of a $1.5 billion highway expansion on Friday, marking Beijing's return to major infrastructure development in the East African economy after a years-long hiatus.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/16321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/16321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20179,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/16321\/revisions\/20179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=16321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}