Kenya’s negative image is undermining the country’s competitiveness in the global business market, a new report released today by Brand Kenya has revealed.
The report outlines that factors like the ongoing strikes and insecurity are pulling back the country in its quest to set a mark in the world’s business market.
This was bought out by Brand Kenya, a parastatal tasked with transforming Kenya into a competitive global brand, when it was releasing its follow up report on the recent concluded London Olympic Games where it attended to market the country as an investment destination.
“Kenya is an easy country to sell abroad, our character which shapes our image is the only undoing factor,” said Mary Kimonye, Brand Kenya CEO during the release of the report at Serena Hotel.
“Character issues to do with corruption, insecurity and events such as workers’ strikes bring about labour unrest and in turn shy away investors,” added the Mrs Kimonye.
Despite the lackluster performance by Kenyan athletes in the Olympic Games, the report shows that the event was on the other hand fruitful in that the country had a successful venture on the business front.
According to Mrs Kimonye, the event was an opportunity for Kenya to market itself in the global market in line with achieving vision 2030.
“In an initiative led by our organization, Brand Kenya Board set up the Kenya House in London and organized Kenya’s Investment Summit, in a bid to showcase projects that the country was ready to invest in under the vision 2030 scope,” said the CEO.
“We chose to embark on this venture because a lot of media attention is focused on Kenya during the Olympics,” she added.
Kenya’s delegates had an opportunity of networking with investors for the purposes of doing business in Kenya. Unlike other countries, Kenya house was not hospitality oriented and strictly driven by Information and Communication Technology (ICT) activities.
Projects that were discussed dwelled on energy, infrastructure, real estate, culture tourism and agriculture. An estimated 20,000 people, majority investors, visited the house during the period.
According to the report, the summit had its fair share of success as CBS global investment limited gave the Kenyan Government a proposal to set 10, 000 housing units that will cater for security forces, public sector employees and private owners.
Investec Group, an international specialist banking and asset management group indicated that they would also consider investing five million US dollars in oil exploration while the Belgian Advanced Technology Services (BATS) expressed interest in the Lamu Port and Lamu Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor (LAPSSET).
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