Kenya eyes investment with UK worth $18 billion

Kenyan president William Ruto and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak

NAIROBI - Kenya’s president William Ruto is eyeing investment opportunities worth $ 18 billion from the United Kingdom.

This week the country’s Cabinet Secretary for Investment, Trade, and Indcountry’sustry Moses Kuria is leading a high-powered government delegation to London for the Economic Partnership Agreement and Investment meeting.

Kenya t is targeting close to $10 billion in Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) this year in a plan mooted by the Kenya Investment Authority.

The forum is being held through a Ministerial Council meeting on the Economic Partnership Agreement, which was scheduled to kick off on Tuesday, March 21, 2023, in London.

A press statement from the Trade ministry “The forum will provide a platform to explore opportunities between the two countries to grow the economic relationship and mutual prosperity.” Participants are drawn from the public and private sectors including Principal Secretaries and Chief Executive Officers representing various relevant Government agencies from Kenya, as well as Government and private sector players from the UK.

The Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) was signed on December 8, 2020, and ratified in March 2021. The two key objectives were to provide full duty-free and quota-free market access conditions for goods originating in the EAC Partner States into the market of the UK on a secure, long- term and predictable basis and to preserve and improve market access conditions to ensure that Kenya fully benefits from the EPA.

In economic terms, the EPA provides a good framework for strengthening the strategic cooperation between Kenya and the UK in the areas of trade, investment, research, innovation and development, value addition, and capacity building which will promote improved relations at both the government and private sector level.

The Economic partnership agreement allowed Kenya and UK to maintain trade relations post-Brexit and granted Kenyan goods, particularly horticulture exports duty-free access to the UK.

Through the EPA agreement, Kenya and UK have undertaken operations on market access and business environment issues having held discussions in March 2022 as well as the Trade and Business environment roadshow in the UK.

UK has continued to support the Kenyan business environment, particularly on tax and customs, intellectual property and counterfeit goods, public procurement, and research and development.

GAROWE ONLINE