Kenya`s efforts to build special economic territories receives a major boost by the World Bank who will provide technical support.
The bank has approved a deal to offer advisory services in the development and regulatory framework special economic zones (SEZs) and proposed industrial parks.
The SEZs are fabricated to entice high net worth investors into the state to mainly set up export oriented enterprises.
The project whose budget is Ksh413 million is being implemented by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) which is the group`s arm that handles investment and advisory services to psych up the private sector development.
Disclosures by IFC on October 30th, said that the Kenya Investment Generation Project will help to streamline the legal, regulatory and administrative environment for SEZ development.
It also has the target to boost the country`s industrial competitiveness by creating an atmosphere for investment in quality and market demand driven industrial infrastructure and talk about the problems that clog value addition and manufacturing. This will boost the quality of the industrial infrastructure development and generating investments.
The diminishing competitiveness of Kenya`s factories is evident as the share of manufacturing sector to gross domestic product shriveled to a low of 7.7 percent in 2018 from 10 percent in 2014.
Companies operating in SEZs such as Export Processing Zones in Athi River enjoy tax incentives on corporation and value added taxes.
Kenya is a titan when it comes to SEZs, it hosts 61 of them which is the largest number compared to any country in Africa making up a quarter of the 237 of the total SEZs.
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