Kenya adopts new strategies to improve green biz, country’s import-export gap widened

Kenya has recorded a substantial dwindle in staple food production for multiple causes such as climate change and pesticides. The East African country is currently banking on inter-regional agro-based trade to address the outstanding 600,000 metric tons of rice, 2 million metric tons of wheat and around 500,000 metric ton of maize deficit.

The trade market in Kenya has confronted a radical change in January and February of 2019 with Pakistan losing its position as the country’s top export market, which Japan went ahead to become the East African country’s second largest import market. Pakistan earlier emerged as the top buyer of Kenyan tea but the current figure revealed by the Central Bank of Kenya depicts that the export to South Asian country has dwindled by 38.94 percent (around Sh8.75 billion) in comparison to the first part of 2018.

However, as far as Kenya’s considerable fall in the production of staple food is concerned, inter-regional trade in agricultural commodities will be the ultimate solution to cover the deficit whilst boosting the food security agenda of the government in the next three years, according to Margaret Mwakima, Principal Secretary, East African Community and Regional Development.

Margaret Mwakima says that in order to compete with the neighbouring nations in green business, the Kenyan government has instituted a business environment program that will ensure policies are streamlined. The council has formulated strategies to ensure improvement in green business investment for the member stated so that the burden of overdependence among member states gets eliminated, as reported by KBC Channel.

Apart from production of staple food, Kenya has experienced a drop of export receipts in the first two months of this year by 5.88 percent (Sh104.21 billion), which is largely driven by a decline in earning from tea. Alternatively, Kenya has witnessed a considerable increase of food imports by 3.46 percent (Sh296.38 billion). Due to a broadening of local supply deficit, Kenya’s imports of rice, wheat and corn are likely to increase in the coming fiscal year, as revealed by the US Department of Agriculture Service. The data revealed by the Central Bank shows that the gap between imports and exports for the first two months of current year widened by 3.46 percent to Sh192.17 billion, The Star Kenya noted.

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