Transport Turkish contractor to build Uganda-Kenya rail link By Chris Hamill-Stewart October 14, 2024, 4:14 PM Purple Pilchards/Alamy via Reuters Yapi Merkezi will construct a railway line that links Uganda's capital Kampala with Kenya Yapi Merkezi to build 272km of line Contract worth $3bn Line will link Uganda to Kenya Turkish construction company Yapi Merkezi has signed a deal with the Ugandan government to build a rail line linking Uganda to Kenya, Ugandan officials announced Monday. Yapi Merkezi will build 272km of a planned 1,700km electric line in a contract worth $3 billion. Construction will start in November, Uganda’s Standard Gauge Railway project coordinator, Perez Wamburu said, and is expected to take 48 months to complete. “This important piece of infrastructure will serve as the backbone of Uganda’s surface transport system meeting the much needed transport capacity in the country and the region as cargo and passenger transport demand has rapidly increased over the last decade,” Uganda’s Ministry of Works and Transport wrote on social media platform X. Approximately 150km of the required land has been acquired so far, with efforts ongoing to acquire the remaining required space, according to an announcement on X. The project will ultimately form a rail connection between Kampala, the capital of Uganda, and Malaba at the border with Kenya. Hafeet Rail secures $1.5bn loan for UAE-Oman rail link $266bn logistics hub spend starts in Saudi Arabia Giza mega station opening drives Egypt’s rail investments Yapi Merkezi completed the first two phases of a similar project in neighbouring Tanzania in August. For the deal with Yapi Merkezi, Uganda will use its own funds and credit from export credit organisations to finance the project, said Wamburu. Founded in Istanbul in 1965, Yapi Merkezi has branches today in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Algeria, Morocco, Ethiopia and Tanzania.
