The passenger traffic of Chinese-built Kenya's Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) rose 32.7 percent in the first half of 2022 compared to the same period in 2021 amid increased economic activities, new data released on Thursday by the government statistics agency shows.

The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) said the Chinese-built railway carried 1.12 million passengers during the period, a significant surge from 754,313 in the same period in 2021.

KNBS said the month of April recorded the biggest number of passengers, at 264,119, followed by 228,353 in March and 175,936 in May.

The surge in passenger numbers in April can be attributed to the Easter holiday when Kenyans traveled to the Coast for holidays as tourism activities picked up after the COVID-19 disruption.

Since its inception in 2017, the passenger train has moved some eight million passengers between the capital Nairobi and Mombasa, a coastal city in Kenya along the Indian Ocean, according to the agency, with many preferring it due to reduced travel time from 10 hours to five.

Cargo carried by the Mombasa-Nairobi railway also recorded an upward trajectory. Some 2.97 million tons of cargo were transported between January and June this year, up from 2.72 million tons in the same period in 2021.