Making Kenya top investment hub should be our past-time

President William Ruto has actively courted investors to set up base in Kenya, and hence promoted Kenya as a top investment hub that investors of all kinds can come and invest in. Through the efforts of the President, major companies like Google, Visa, Microsoft, African-Export -Import Bank (Afrexim) have agreed to set base in Kenya. Three major factors guide the decision of investors and developers to set camp in a country or a county. The first factor is the economic fundamentals in a country or county. Economic fundamentals in an economy are determined by six major factors that includes – first the rate at which businesses and jobs can grow which signifies a good working operating environment, secondly the resilience of the economy to the many shocks like climate change, global inflation, civil wars and other conflicts that are likely to occur. Thirdly is the quality and affordability of infrastructure which is an enabling factor for manufacturing and industrialization which leads to growth.

Fourth is the level of skills possessed by the population, the workforce and the overall quality of the education system and the research outputs that comes from such countries and counties. This calls for investment in good and functional education systems supported by robust research and development financing to make the labour force. Fifth is the sector make up of the economy, including those areas that have high capacity to drive growth and development, and six is the quality of the environment, including the liveability determined by reduction in pollution, traffic congestion and security arrangements. The second major factor that drives investment is the country or county governance that is determined by five key elements. The first one is the vision of the county or county and for Kenya, we have the Kenya Vision 2030, secondly is the plans that are put in place to achieve the vision and development goals, thirdly, is the attitude and consistency of the leadership in delivering growth and development. Fourth is the quality of management available in a region, fifth is the availability of information and data for effective decision making. The third major factor is the practicabilities of making investments which are determined by population, availability of land, planning systems, taxation regimes/ and incentives, construction costs and access to finance