Kenya's first standard gauge railway from the port of Mombasa to the country's capital Nairobi began operation on Wednesday, which is a new milestone for the country's transportation sector and is expected to speed up its industrialization.

The 480-kilometer standard gauge railway was constructed by the China Road and Bridge Corporation, with 90 percent of the funding coming from China. It involves a total investment of $3.8 billion, which makes it the African country's largest infrastructure project since its independence.

Kenya has become the third African nation to launch a railway system built with Chinese technology after Ethiopia and Nigeria.

Chinese State Councilor Wang Yong, who attended the launch ceremony as the special envoy of Chinese President Xi Jinping, said the Mombasa-Nairobi railway has been an early fruit that came out of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative and the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in late 2015.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said the railway marks a new chapter in the history of Kenya.

The project is expected to drive the Kenyan economy into an industrialized, middle-income status as envisioned in the nation's development blueprint, Vision 2030, he said.