Kenya railway a game changer for East Africa

Hailed as a symbol of "Chinese quality and spirit", the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway, which opened on May 31 in Kenya, ferried more than 7,000 passengers in the first week of its operation, a weekly record for the country.

In contrast to the meter-gauge railway built more than a century ago during the British colonial rule, the 480-kilometer railway is expected to reduce the travel time from 10 hours to just 4 hours and lower logistics costs by 10 to 40 percent. Built by China Road and Bridge Corporation, Kenya's first standard gauge railway, also the largest infrastructure project since its independence, cost $3.8 billion with China contributing nearly 90 percent of the amount.

The good news for Kenya, however, has been accompanied by speculation by Western observers that the country will struggle to repay the "monstrous" debt at the expense of Kenyan taxpayers. A recent report in The New York Times even drew parallels between the China-funded railway and the "Lunatic Express", a term coined over 100 years ago to describe the costly, all-consuming construction of a colonial British railway linking the Kenyan part of Lake Victoria with Mombasa.