{"id":22446,"date":"2026-01-15T10:08:29","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T08:08:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/kenya-strikes-preliminary-trade-deal-with-china\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:33:26","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:33:26","slug":"kenya-strikes-preliminary-trade-deal-with-china","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/kenya-strikes-preliminary-trade-deal-with-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenya strikes preliminary trade deal with China"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Kenya has struck a preliminary trade agreement with China that allows 98.2% of its export goods duty free market access, its Trade Ministry said on Thursday, adding the two sides had been holding discussions in search of a full bilateral trade deal.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The East African nation has been forging closer ties with China, with President William Ruto making a state visit to Beijing last year, where a number of financing and cooperation agreements were signed.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;We have initiated discussion with China to negotiate a bilateral trade agreement,&#8221; Kenya&#8217;s Trade Ministry said in a statement, disclosing the talks for the first time. &#8220;These engagements have resulted in a preliminary agreement.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Ruto has defended the rapprochement with China against criticism from some United States officials, saying Kenya has to export more goods to the Asian economy to close a trade gap heavily tilted in Beijing&#8217;s favour.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13358,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,44],"class_list":["post-22446","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":null,"news_description":"Kenya has struck a preliminary trade agreement","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/22446","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\/22446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25744,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/22446\/revisions\/25744"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=22446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}