KENYA
BY JONATHAN YACH
Tourism A Key Growth Driver
East Africa’s business hub
K
enya continues to be an important economic,
commercial and infrastructure hub within
the East African region. In fact, Nairobi is a
cosmopolitan capital city which has established itself
over time as the business and financial centre in east
and central Africa, home to regional headquarters of
global corporations, including Coca Cola, General
Electric and the World Bank.
Economy
From a macroeconomic perspective, economic
growth continued to climb at 4.7% for Q3 2013.
Agriculture and horticult ure are the largest
contributors to the country’s GDP, followed by
tourism. Tourism is one of the key sectors identified
as a growth driver to achieve the country’s Vision
2030 objectives of transforming Kenya into a newly
industrialising, middle-income country providing a
high quality life to all its citizens by the year 2030.
Fol low ing t he peacef u l conc lusion of t he
genera l elec t ion in 2 013, forecasts sug gest
overall economic performance will to continue
trending upward in 2014. Foreign investment in
the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) remains
buoyant, supported by the positive economic
outlook for 2014. The Central Bank has enjoyed
success in reducing inflation from almost 20% in
January 2012, to 7.3% in May 2014, supported
by lower f uel and basic commodit y prices; a
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Offshore Handbook 2014
strengthening Kenya Shilling; and increased
foreign exchange inflows.
Financial sector
The country’s banking sector has over the decade
increased the level of flexibility and availability of
financial services across the country’s 43 commercial
banks and one mortgage financial institution. And
loan transactions have been on the rise as a result,
mainly from households