NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 20 — President William Ruto on Thursday declared that Kenya is now firmly on a historic trajectory to join the ranks of the world’s leading economies, drawing parallels with the rise of the Asian Tigers.
Ruto said the country has begun its transition from a developing to a developed economy.
Delivering his State of the Nation Address to a joint sitting of Parliament, Ruto said reforms over the past three years have laid “foundations of progress,” positioning Kenya to make an economic leap similar to Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Malaysia — countries he described as once Kenya’s peers.
“If they could rise, so can Kenya. It can be done. Let me repeat: it can be done,” he said, emphasizing that Kenya now has the discipline, ambition, and resolve required to take the decisive steps that catapulted the Asian Tigers into first-world status.
Ruto said the nation must abandon “a prevailing mindset of being content with the average” and make bold, disciplined choices to unlock national greatness.
“We must step beyond the comfort of the familiar and the ordinary and reach with courage, clarity and conviction for nothing less than excellence and greatness,” he told legislators.
He described Kenya as a country that has long “punched below its weight” but now has a rare opportunity to convert decades of potential into tangible progress.
Macroeconomic gains
Highlighting macroeconomic gains, Ruto said inflation has fallen from 9.6 percent in 2022 to 4.6 percent, while the shilling has remained stable at 129 to the US dollar for nearly two years.
He noted foreign reserves have risen to over USD 12 billion, the highest in independent Kenya, while the Nairobi Securities Exchange has recorded a resurgence, restoring over Sh1 trillion in investor wealth since January.
Foreign direct investment, he said, has tripled from USD 463 million in 2021 to USD 1.5 billion, and the IMF has assessed Kenya as Africa’s sixth-largest economy, with a GDP of USD 136 billion.
Ruto dismissed opposition critics as “high priests of eternal pessimism,” accusing them of manufacturing falsehoods despite clear national progress.
He said the government’s decision to subsidize production rather than consumption has delivered visible results, including maize harvests rising from 44 million bags in 2022 to a projected 70 million bags this year.
Fertilizer prices have dropped by nearly two-thirds after distributing 21 million subsidized bags, tea earnings have increased to Sh215 billion, coffee farmer earnings have doubled to Sh120–150 per kilo, and the dairy, livestock, edible oils, and sugar sub-sectors have recorded major recoveries.
Health reforms
Ruto described health reforms as the most ambitious since independence, with 27 million Kenyans now registered under the Social Health Authority (SHA), up from fewer than nine million under NHIF.
The deployment of 107,000 community health promoters has transformed primary healthcare, resulting in 8.9 million household visits, nearly 10 million diabetes screenings, and 6.5 million hypertension tests.
He also announced that the cancer treatment package will increase from Sh550,000 to Sh800,000, effective December 1.
In education, the government has hired 76,000 teachers, with 24,000 more joining in January, marking the largest recruitment in Kenya’s history.
Nearly 500,000 students have benefited from a new funding model, while TVET enrollment has more than doubled to 718,000.
Ruto said the housing program, initially dismissed by critics as “fantasy,” is now seeing strong public demand, with more than 230,000 affordable units under development and 178,000 student accommodation beds prepared for universities, KMTCs, and TVET institutions, 74,000 of which are already under construction.
Linking all these reforms to his broader economic vision, Ruto said Kenya is at an inflection point similar to the Asian Tigers in the years before their explosive growth.
“Countries that were our peers had no extraordinary resources. They were not superhuman. They simply had the courage to make bold, disciplined choices. Today they stand as first-world economies. If they could rise, so can Kenya.”
