Kenya Uganda Railroad

Here is something interesting and profound about inland trade in East Africa. The quotation about relative shipping costs from Chicago to Mombasa had particular purchase with me. Happy reading.

Photos and Text borrowed from The Scarlett Lion:

Buried in the business briefs of the New York Times is an announcement of a joint operation between Kenya and Uganda to rebuild the railroad that goes from the port in Mombasa to Kampala.

While this doesn't seem like big news, it's actually huge. It's more expensive to ship a ton of wheat from Mombasa to Kampala than to ship it from Chicago to Mombasa. That means that everything in Uganda which is not produced locally, ie, everything but tomatoes, matooke, and Nice Pens, has to come from somewhere else. Since the country is landlocked and the roads are notoriously awful, this could be a huge boom in the economy. Cheaper imports can help the market grow, and a railroad could also mean cheaper exports to sell on an East African and international market.

The train tracks in Kampala, near the Mukwano roundabout, are now more of a market and thoroughfare than trade route.