Kenya to open five consulates in the US

Kenya is set to open five new consulates across the US in the latest show of improving diplomatic and trade relations between the two countries.
Foreign Affairs secretary Amina Mohammed says the government will open consulates in Dallas, Boston, Minneapolis, Chicago and Seattle to serve the diaspora including facilitating voting in general elections.

Kenya currently has consulates in Los Angeles and New York as well as an embassy in Washington DC.

The new agencies are meant to support Kenyans living in the US who last year sent home nearly Sh68 billion, about half the total sent by citizens in the diaspora.

“The honorary consuls for Dallas, Boston Minneapolis and Chicago will soon be appointed while the choice of Seattle for a consulate awaits formal approval,” Ms Mohammed said in Los Angeles on Saturday.

“These huge remittances, coupled with the invaluable skills and contacts that Kenyans living abroad possesses, makes diaspora a critical asset for national development.”

Framework

The move to open new consulates in America comes at a time of warming relations between Uhuru Kenyatta’s government and that of Barack Obama who is set to visit Kenya in July.

Mr Obama is scheduled to visit Kenya for bilateral talks and the 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Summit, the first visit by a sitting US President to Kenya, but his fourth on the continent.

Kenya’s imports from the US last year 165.3 per cent to $1.5 billion (Sh137.46 billion) from $594.5 million (Sh54.4 billion) in 2013, proof that ties between the two countries have improved significantly.

Kenya has in the past decade increasingly looked East for trade and project financing as relations with Western powers cooled.

Ms Mohammed on Saturday also said the government is working on a framework to lower the costs of diaspora transactions to boost trade and facilitate Kenya-bound remittances.

“We are also exploring possibilities of preferential duty waivers and other concessions for diaspora businesses,” said Ms Mohammed.

Ms Mohammed was speaking to Kenyans at a roundtable meeting in Los Angeles, California, on behalf of President Kenyatta who on Thursday night called off his trip to the US over security fears.

President Kenyatta, who was to attend the Milken Institute Global Conference and later head the roundtable discussion, jetted back into the country following “heightened military activity in Yemen”, which made the flight risky.