East Africa Community Principal Secretary Betty Maina says the move will assist in growing Kenyan brands and creating jobs for millions of youths who remain jobless/file
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 17 – The government will continue to push for legislations that support and protects local manufacturers in line with President Uhuru Kenyattta’s Big four Agenda that includes growth of the manufacturing sector.
East Africa Community Principal Secretary Betty Maina says the move will assist in growing Kenyan brands and creating jobs for millions of youths who remain jobless.
Her comments follow the proposal for a number of tax measures aimed at realising the manufacturing sector objectives. The tax measures are mainly in the form of increased duty for imported nproducts and tax incentives for the local market.
Presenting the tax measures in Parliament last month, National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich said the proposals that have been under implemention are also intended to incentives the achievement of the big four plan.
Local manufacturers of Iron ore and steel, as well as the paper industry, got as huge caution as the government increased import taxes to 35 percent from 25 percent while the textile and footwear industry treasury has increased rate of import duty of USD 5 per unit in a bid to encourage local production create jobs.
She was speaking during the launch of Honda’s ACE 110 motor bike by the Japanese company in Nairobi.
“Kenya remains to be a key market in the region. This means that any investor will be willing to set up manufacturing operations here, which will benefit Kenyans at large in the end,” she said.
Speaking at the same event, Honda Motorcycle Kenya Chairman Isaac Kalua urged local companies to take advantage of the lucrative motorbike spare parts sector.
He revealed that only 5 parts out of 300 parts of most motorbikes are manufactured locally, which represents a huge opportunity.
“Spare parts have always been big business and motobikes are not going anywhere anytime soon. We therefore need to take advantage of this huge manfacturing opportunty,” Kalua said.
Kenya currently has over 500,000 motobikes in the country.
