The European Union has urged Kenya to improve its business environment, citing graft, frequent legislative changes, and unfavourable taxes, even as it plans to intensify trade activities with the East African nation.
EU Ambassador to Kenya Henriette Geiger revealed this development while speaking to Bloomberg in the midst of an ongoing Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) granting Kenya duty-free and quota-free access to the bloc. "We're working on the business climate and the investment climate, and that at the moment is not very favorable in Kenya," Geiger said. "Others are not sleeping.
Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda are catching up fast and are becoming more and more competitive, while Kenya is resting a bit on its laurels," she added.
European Union Ambassador to Kenya, Henriette Geiger (left) shakes hands with President William Ruto at his Karen home on Thursday, June 2, 2022 DPPS While drumming up support for the agreement, Geiger called for the reforms to ensure that the long-lasting impacts of the EPA could be felt in the country's economy. "What we have seen with other countries where EPAs were signed with the EU, they had incredible increases in trade volumes, in comparison to countries that didn't have an EPA," she opined.
