Uhuru holds talks with Rwanda’s Kagame on trade, transport

President Uhuru Kenyatta on Thursday hosted his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame in Nairobi, with trade and transport featuring in their discussions.

The Rwandan leader came on a working visit just days after his country reopened its land border with Uganda, easing transportation of cargo from the port of Mombasa to Kigali.

A dispatch from State House in Nairobi said the two leaders discussed “a wide range of areas of cooperation between the two countries including trade and transport” and other continental issues.

President Kenyatta welcomed Rwanda’s move to reopen its Gatuna-Katuna border with Uganda, saying “it will ease the movement of goods and people between the two neighbouring countries,” State House said.

The border point, one of the busiest in the region, was shut in 2019 following a diplomatic tiff between Uganda and Rwanda, forcing importers to reroute their goods through the port of Dar es Salaam.

The dispatch said Kenya asked Rwanda to “diversify its imports from Kenya and continue taking advantage of the improved services at the port of Mombasa to facilitate the movement of goods”.

Nairobi sees Rwanda as a strategic country linking Kenya to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s market. The DRC is due to be admitted into the East African Community once it completes the penultimate stage of negotiating entry to the bloc’s protocol.

But the DRC too is facing a security problem, requiring the cooperation of neighbours to tame the scourge of militias. Uganda and the DRC in November launched a joint military offensive against the Allied Democratic Forces, a rebel group with origins in Uganda but now operating in eastern DRC. 

The two leaders also affirmed their commitment to working together to find lasting solutions to conflicts facing Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan and Somalia, saying Kenya and Rwanda will continue to play a leading role in promoting dialogue and peace among warring parties.