Kenya is hopeful the contagious Coronavirus will be contained before July ahead of a major annual trade fair in neighbouring Tanzania which it plans to use to market her products to traders on the continent.
The Kenya Export Promotion and Branding Agency (Keproba) said it has invested in the Dar es Salaam International Trade fair slated for June 28 to July 13.
The exhibition, also known as Saba Saba because its climax is on July 7, attracts traders from Eastern and Southern Africa — where Tanzania is the current chair of the 16-member Southern African Development Community trading bloc.
“Kenya is preparing to participate in the Dar es Salaam International Trade fair July 2020. Kenya and Tanzania remain leading trading partners and our collaboration in trade and investment will unlock the opportunities for the mutual benefit of the East Africa region,” Keproba chief executive Peter Biwott said.
Nairobi has struggled to sustainably expand her exports to African countries since the turn of the decade largely due to influx of cheaper imports from China while some of the countries have set up own factories to substitute imports from Kenya.
As a result, Kenyan factories have been losing their market share, a development authorities in Nairobi insist is set to change through policy measures such as lowering cost of energy aimed at improving industrial competitiveness.
Some of the interventions which took effect this financial year include a 30 percent refund on total cost of power to be deducted from corporation tax for profitable firms and a cut in Import Declaration Fee (IDF) on raw materials and intermediate goods to 1.5 percent from 2.0 percent.
and increase the same on finished imports to 3.5 percent.
Others are reduction on value added tax (VAT) withholding rate to two from six percent and exemption from the standard 16 percent VAT for locally manufactured computer motherboards and all inputs used in their manufacture.
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Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
