Kenya to model manufacturing sector after China success: official

NAIROBI - Kenya plans to model its manufacturing sector after China's success, officials said on Friday.

Julius Muia, director general of Kenya's national economic blueprint Vision 2030, told Xinhua that Kenya wishes to draw experience from China's establishment of Special Economic Zones (SEZs).

"We have studied the Chinese model of using SEZs with a view to replicating their successful model in Kenya so as to develop a globally competitive manufacturing sector," Muia said on the sidelines of a policy forum on Kenya's future economic growth outlook.

Muia said the government has already identified a 3,000-acre piece of land next to the port of Mombasa that will be a nucleus of SEZ development in the coastal region.

"The land will be modeled after the successful SEZ in Shenzhen which has played a key role in China's industrial transformation," he added.

Vision 2030 has identified the manufacturing sector as one of the key pillars of the economy that will enable the country to achieve the status of a newly industrialized nation.

Muia noted that SEZs can be used to lure multinational manufacturers to establish operations in the country by offering incentives.

Features of SEZs include affordable electricity, good roads and railways networks as well as tax breaks of inputs.

The director general said the institutional and legal framework of SEZs have already been completed.

"SEZs will now begin to be implemented in the third, five-year medium term plan that begins in January 2018," he added.