{"id":19276,"date":"2026-01-15T13:27:31","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T13:27:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/?p=19276"},"modified":"2026-01-15T13:27:31","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T13:27:31","slug":"kenya-strikes-a-preliminary-trade-deal-with-china-ministry-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/19276\/kenya-strikes-a-preliminary-trade-deal-with-china-ministry-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenya strikes a preliminary trade deal with China, ministry says"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__dark-grey__UFC18 text-module__regular__qJJtA text-module__small__sph8i body-module__full_width__kCIGb body-module__small_body__gOmDf article-body-module__paragraph__Ts-yF\" data-testid=\"paragraph-0\">Kenya has struck a preliminary trade agreement with China that allows 98.2% of its export goods duty-free market access, its trade ministry said on Thursday, adding the two sides had been holding discussions in search of a full bilateral trade deal.<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__dark-grey__UFC18 text-module__regular__qJJtA text-module__small__sph8i body-module__full_width__kCIGb body-module__small_body__gOmDf article-body-module__paragraph__Ts-yF\" data-testid=\"paragraph-1\">The East African nation has been forging closer ties with China, with President William Ruto making a state visit to Beijing last year, where a number of financing and cooperation agreements were signed.<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__dark-grey__UFC18 text-module__regular__qJJtA text-module__small__sph8i body-module__full_width__kCIGb body-module__small_body__gOmDf article-body-module__paragraph__Ts-yF\" data-testid=\"paragraph-2\">&#8220;We have initiated discussion with China to negotiate a bilateral trade agreement,&#8221; Kenya&#8217;s trade ministry said in a statement, disclosing the talks for the first time. &#8220;These engagements have resulted in a preliminary agreement.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__dark-grey__UFC18 text-module__regular__qJJtA text-module__small__sph8i body-module__full_width__kCIGb body-module__small_body__gOmDf article-body-module__paragraph__Ts-yF\" data-testid=\"paragraph-3\">Ruto has defended the rapprochement with China against criticism from some U.S. officials, saying Kenya has to export more goods to the Asian economy to close a trade gap heavily tilted in Beijing&#8217;s favour.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kenya has struck a preliminary trade agreement with China that allows 98.2% of its export goods duty-free market access, its trade ministry said on Thursday, adding the two sides had been holding discussions in search of a full bilateral trade deal. The East African nation has been forging closer ties with China, with President William [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19277,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,32],"tags":[396,111,490],"class_list":["post-19276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-economy","tag-china","tag-kenya","tag-william-ruto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19276"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19278,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19276\/revisions\/19278"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}