Kenya and Uganda plan to build a new railway from the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa to cope with increased trade between the east African countries and their landlocked neighbours, Reuters reported.
The two countries are now served by a metre-gauge track built at the turn of the 20th century and officials say it carries less than six percent of freight destined for Kenya's interior and countries in the region.
The importance of Kenya's links to other east African countries was highlighted early last year when post-election violence in the region's biggest economy choked trade.
Mombasa handled more than 16 million tonnes of cargo annually and this was expected to rise to 30 million tonnes per year by 2030.
The railway handled less than the six percent of cargo passing through the Northern Corridor – linking Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, parts of Tanzania, south Sudan and Ethiopia – at the end of 2007.
The main highway from Mombasa to Kenya's capital Nairobi and on to Kampala is clogged with heavily-laden lorries.
The cost of constructing the new railway is estimated to be about US$3.5 billion and the two governments are still working on how to structure the financing options.
Kenya and Uganda would conduct a $10 million feasibility study, with Kenya providing $8 million of this.
Uganda, however, wants to move straight to the design stage, saying it costs 10 US cents per kilometre tonne to transport goods by rail to Uganda, compared with one US cent for the equivalent in China and two cents in the United States.
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