In this video clip Daniel Kavishe, RMB Africa Economist and author of the Where to Invest in Africa 2021 report, takes a closer look at the extent of the pandemic’s impact and other factors affecting Kenya’s investment-attractiveness ranking.
Over the past few years, there's been sizeable investments into the digital infrastructure of Kenya. Therefore, it's not surprising that when we ranked our 'Where to Invest in Africa 2021', Kenya's figures came pretty high at ninth position, once again featuring in our top 10 investment destinations across the continent.
So what makes Kenya great? Well, in addition to the digital infrastructure, they have one of the most diversified export base. Everything from hard raw minerals to agricultural products such as tea that are being sold at an international level.
They've made sizeable investments also within infrastructure within their economy. We saw that, coming into this crisis, that they took in quite a bulk of debt to help them absorb the conditions that were exacerbated by the pandemic.
But we really think their drive across the digital infrastructure network, would be one of the key things that Kenya will be known for over the next few years. Not only within the country, but across the wider East African region.
Further, we also think that developments that they're making across the agricultural base, which will indelibly have an impact as to how it is they manufacture within their own economy, would be quite supportive for Kenya.
Kenya will indelibly benefit from the wider Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement, which came into effect in 2021, but once rules of origins have been finalised across the different markets it'll be one of the few economies that we can definitely watch out for in terms of boosting its wider manufacturing, and wholesale and retail trading base.