MARKET BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT
Africa is by all measures a promising and rewarding investment destination that is attracting and ever growing numbers of development and investment partners from all over the world.
The prime investment opportunities are many and prioritize respectively as follows: Health Care, Renewable Energy, Agri-Business, Tourism / Hotel/ Hospitality Industry, Real Estate, Manufacturing, Food Processing, Transport, Communication, Infrastructure development, Natural Resources, Technologies and Financial Services. East Africa is a particularly desirable investment destination due to a number of key strengths that include:-
1) Excellent Connectivity – convenient time zones, Nairobi as the transportation hub of Eastern and Central Africa and Mombasa Port is the most biggest deep-water port on Africas entire east coast – all connect Kenya to the world and the world to Kenya
2) Talent Skills – A deep pool of educated and skilled manpower have made East Africa the manufacturing, commercial and financial hub in eastern and central Africa
3) Tourism – as a global wildlife and safari destination, the tourism industry is one of the most successful in the world, and continues to expand
4) Commercial Environment – as fully liberalized economy without exchange or price controls, there are no restrictions on domestic and foreign borrowing by residents and non-residents
5) Trade Promotion – an attractive and comprehensive package of incentives offered to development partners
6) Collaboration – A strong and cooperative relationship exists between the government, the private sector and development partners makes it conducive to attracting investments in countries in East Africa.
7) Memberships – in regional trading blocs of COMESA and the EAC, as well as a beneficiary country under the preferential trade enhancing schemes offered by the AGOA legislation of the USA and the ACP-EU Cooperation and various bilateral cooperation agreements
8) Location – Proximity to the entire African market with plenty of land and a high population
9) Manufacturing – a relatively well developed manufacturing base in the Eastern African region
10) Natural Resources – potential exists for exploration and exploitation of East Africa’s mineral resources such as Oil, Natural Gas and precious metals. At present, exploration is at early stages.
11) Climate – favorable weather conditions as well as attractive and diverse social/cultural environment.
12) Infrastructure – is relatively well developed, is growing fast and attracting significant investment
13) Technology – Kenya is the global leader in mobile payments, making the mobile phone a major platform for financial services, doing business and accessing the Internet.