NAIROBI: Kenya is focused on strengthening its relations with China, Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed has said.
The CS said China is Kenya's leading trade and development partner and the state is committed towards boosting collaboration in all the areas of interest.
Ms Amina who spoke during a meeting with her Chinese counterpart Mr Wang Yi, said the two nations have well together in areas such as Transport and Communication, Human Resource Development and energy.
“Our engagements in most areas of collaboration has been transformational. We want to take our co-operation to the next level," she said at an inaugural Bilateral Steering Committee (BSC) meeting in Beijing.
Her colleagues Charles Keter (Energy), James Macharia (Health) and Adan Mohamed (Industrialization) were present at the meeting held on Wednesday at the Chinese capital.
The BSC meeting was held on the instruction the Presidents of both Kenya and China, who on January 2015 signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to start the engagements.
The MOU was drawn to consolidate and develop Kenya-China comprehensive partnership of equality, mutual trust, mutual benefit and a win-win outcome. It aims to promote exchanges and cooperation in political, economic, cultural fields among others.
"We are keen to help Kenya fast-track its development agenda in a comprehensive manner and are therefore targeting among others port development and management, transport infrastructure and special economic zones (SEZ)," said Mr Yi.
"We look forward to signing an investment treaty and avoidance of double taxation agreement soon as we heighten our operations in Kenya," added the Chinese Foreign Minister.
The Beijing talks were anchored also on the ten major plans to boost cooperation with Africa as announced by China President Xi Jinping during the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit held in South Africa in December last year.
The heart of the plans is a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership in areas of industrialization, agriculture, infrastructure, financial services and trade and investment.
Poverty reduction, capacity building, and public welfare, public health, people-to-people exchanges, peace and security are also other sectors of collaboration.
CS Amina told the meeting Kenya was gearing itself to tap into the pledges made under FOCAC framework.
Under Vision 2030 development blue print, various numerous projects have been identified to fall under this framework.
She said Kenya had established a structured mechanism that will be tasked with engaging the Chinese side under the FOCAC framework including the establishment of focal point.
It was agreed during the talks that another meeting will be held early next year in Nairobi, to review progress and further move forward the development cooperation between the two countries.
