NAIROBI, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) freight service shipped 197,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) containers in the first half of 2019, a 155.8 percent growth in cargo over the corresponding period in 2018 when it shipped 77,020 TEU containers, the operator of the SGR said.

A Kenyan, selling second-hand shoes, on September 18, 2014 looks at a moving train in the Sinai slum of Nairobi. (File Photo: VCG)

Dai Yunjie, spokesperson for Africa Star which operates the SGR service, attributed the expansion in volumes to an aggressive marketing strategy targeting importers and exporters in Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan and Democratic Republic of the Congo, to use the Mombasa-Nairobi SGR freight services as their preferred logistics partner.

"We have also set up our marketing team and provided practical and feasible advice to Kenya Railways Corporation and relevant authorities for incremental freight transportations." Dai said in a statement issued on Monday evening.

According to Africa Star, the passenger traffic in the first six months of 2019 was similar to the number ferried in the corresponding period last year.