The Ministry of Industrialization and Enterprise Development (MOIED) has developed this strategic, comprehensive and integrated programme to guide Kenya on its journey to industrialization .
The programme is guided by Kenya Vision 2030, the country’s economic development blueprint that aims to transform Kenya into a newly industrializing, “middle-income country providing a high-quality life to all its citizens by the year 2030” . The objective of the Economic Pillar of Vision 2030 is to create a robust, diversified and competitive manufacturing sector in three ways: 1) boosting local production, 2) expanding to the regional market and 3) taking advantage of global market niches .
Over the past ten years, Kenya’s manufacturing base has remained static at 11% of the country’s GDP, and its industrial exports have decreased in absolute terms . Increasing this base is critical to job creation and economic growth as well as domestic and foreign investment . We have identified opportunities that will more than double the amount of current formal manufacturing sector jobs to approximately seven hundred thousand and add USD
2 to 3 billion to our GDP.
To realise these opportunities, we need to overcome six challenges: infrastructure and land availability, skills and capabilities in priority sectors, quality of inputs, cost of operation, access to markets and investor-friendly policies . We have developed a five-point strategy to capture these opportunities over the next ten years .