Manufacturers have called on the government to revive and industrialize Kenya’s agriculture sector.
This was during the launch of the Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) Manufacturing Priority Agenda (MPA) 2023.
Speaking during the launch, Principal Secretary of, the State Department for Investment Promotion, Abubakar Hassan Abubakar noted that the government has prioritized various value chains, geared towards driving industrial growth.
“Manufacturing is known the world over as a creator of jobs due to the value chains involved. As a government, we have prioritized leather, textiles, dairy, edible oil and pharmaceutical sectors among others, to drive our country’s industrial growth. This will be driven through the County Aggregation Industrial Parks across all 47 counties,” Abubakar said.
He observed that attracting investments calls for public-private dialogue to improve the business environment in the country, saying, “We shall drive investments attraction through the National Investments Council, by attracting, facilitating and enabling investments in Kenya.”
Untapped opportunities
Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) Chairman, Rajan Shah observed that whereas there are endless opportunities for value addition in the agriculture sector, they are largely untapped.
“Low-value addition in Kenya has made it impossible to realize the full potential of the manufacturing sector, hence denying citizens extra jobs, wealth retention and incentivization of the sector to increase production and economic growth,” Shah said.
“In the agriculture sector, we export products with little or no value-added, hence we miss out on increased income. It is paramount that we create linkages between farmers and manufacturers to reduce the share of agricultural products that are exported in the primary form to derive more value from exports,” added the KAM chairman.
Further, Shah called for the creation of an enabling environment, saying, “This shall be achieved through sound policy, regulatory and institutional frameworks that foster forward and backward linkages, dynamic economies of scale and innovation.”
The MPA is an annual publication that guides KAM’s advocacy efforts with Government and its agencies.
This year’s MPA, themed, ‘Resetting Manufacturing to achieve Agenda 20BY30’, shall be guided by 4 pillars: Global Competitiveness, Export-led Industrialization, SME Development and Industrializing Agriculture.
