Kenya plans to strengthen bilateral relationship with Rwanda in cooperatives' development, youth empowerment and ICT.

This is after President Ruto and his Rwanda counterpart Paul Kagame signed agreed on 10 areas of cooperation during a two-day state visit to Rwanda.

“The agreements seeks to establish mechanisms for effective cooperation in education, ICT, gender and child development, youth capacity development and cooperatives," said a communiqué issued after the two met.

It added that the initiative would also foster development cooperation in correctional services, diplomatic training, agriculture and health.

The agreements further seek to contribute significantly to the coordination at the East African Community and Africa Union level towards the 2063 agenda on trade and investment.

The balance of trade between the two countries is currently in favour of Kenya.

Data by Trading Economics puts the country's export to Rwanda at $278 million (Sh37 billion) in 2021 whereas Rwanda's export to Kenya stands at $11 (Sh1.4 billion) million as of 2022.

With almost 80 per cent of global trade being dependent on shipping, the country enjoys direct access to most global markets as opposed to Rwanda, which is landlocked.

With the signing of the agreements, the president foresees synergy in boosting the nations’ trade relations in potential areas for regional growth and development.

"Just as Rwanda is critical for Kenya as the gateway to the Eastern DRC and the broader Great Lakes region, Kenya is advantageous to Rwanda because the port of Mombasa is an efficient gateway for imports and exports,” Ruto said.

He said the close relationship between Kenya and Rwanda has contributed significantly to effective coordination at regional level, and we will continue to make progress in such sectors as investment, peace and security.

Encouraging and promoting cooperation between the parties in ICT field for mutual benefit is among the agreements foreseen to boost trade.

It includes supporting and strengthening bilateral collaboration at institutional levels between different agencies involved in coordination, implementation, regulations and commercialisation of ICTs.

Cooperation in the field of youth affairs and arts, to facilitate mutual understanding towards youth development promoting innovations, talents, skills and enterprise for employment creation, also makes list.

This will incorporate the consolidation of partnerships between youth institutions, research institutions and youth centres of the two countries.

The agreement will be a ride-on to promote technical development of cooperatives, which promote investment in the cooperative sector, joint ventures, technology development and establishment of market linkages for the cooperatives products.

Kenya and Rwanda have also signed and ratified the One Area Network to ease communication and facilitate bilateral trade.