Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta on Saturday launched a Ksh22 billion ($212.3 million) upgraded inland container depot in the Embakasi area of Nairobi, Kenya's capital city, paving the way for the launch of standard gauge railway SGR cargo services.

The container depot, which was upgraded by the China Road and Bridge Corp (CRBC), is part of phase 2A of the SGR project. The expansion of the depot was launched in May 2016 and completed in June 2017, 12 months ahead of schedule.

Uhuru thanked the Chinese government for supporting Kenya to improve its infrastructure and specifically applauded CRBC for working hard to complete the project ahead of schedule.

He called the project transformative, noting that high-quality public infrastructure investment brings many benefits to the lives of the citizens, including growing the economy, generating jobs and building skills.

With the SGR and the upgraded inland container depot in place, Uhuru expressed confidence that there will be seamless clearance, evacuation and movement of cargo, thereby improving operations of freight forwarders, shippers and players in the transport sector.

Once the cargo service is in operation, the cost of transporting cargo is set to come down, with the minimum cost of transporting a fully loaded 20-foot container set at Ksh19,800 ($191) at a minimum distance of 200 kilometers.

The maximum cost of transporting a fully loaded 20=foot container has been set at Ksh49,500 ($478) for a full distance between the port of Mombasa and the Nairobi inland container depot.