Kenya mulls largest textile city to meet growing demand in Africa
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E-mail Xinhua, April 30, 2014
Kenya plans to build a textile city to meet the manufacturing investment needs for a number of global garment marketing firms, a senior official said on Wednesday.
Ministry of Industrialization and Enterprise Development Cabinet Secretary Adan Mohamed told a delegation of 40 international garment manufacturing firms that plans for the establishment of a Textile City, the first in Sub-Sahara Africa are now at an advanced stage.
"By hosting such important potential investors in the global textile industry, we are effectively confirming a national commitment to facilitate industrial growth through priority sectors as outlined in the National Industrialization Roadmap," Mohamed said.
The CS was during a visit to Export Processing Zone Authority (EPZA) Complex in Athi River, about 40 km east of Nairobi. Mohamed said the Textile City will help meet investor demands for low cost dedicated manufacturing and export zones.
The Textile City model besides foreign investments attraction will be one of the key pillars earmarked as the national job creation platforms.
The delegation is led by high ranking executives from PVH and VF Corporation, who are some of the world's largest apparel manufacturing companies which own and market iconic brands worldwide.
By establishing a Textile City, for onward leasing to potential investors, Mohamed assured will be seeking to address existing industrialization bottlenecks at the Athi River EPZA zone as well as other locations.
The ministry, he said, targets to attract at least 100 textile investment firms at the Textile City and create more than 200,000 sustainable textile jobs by December 2016. Such firms will be expected to take up investment opportunities relating to cotton ginning and yarn spinning, manufacture of textile fabrics and home fabrics, manufacture of apparel and manufacture of garment accessories, and labels among other ventures.
He said enterprises in the Textile City, will also be cushioned from annual National Wage Regulation Orders as wages in sector will be regulated by an inclusive Textile and Apparel Sector Wages Council.
The cabinet secretary said the Textile City has already been enshrined in the recently formulated National industrialization Roadmap.
The Roadmap, he said, aims at facilitating national GDP growth at 4-6 billion U.S. dollars per year for the next 16 years.
The Roadmap developed by the Ministry of Industrialization and Enterprise Development, also seeks to boost Kenya's manufacturing base from 11 percent of GDP to 20 percent of GDP.
"The government through the EPZA is embarking on a project to develop a textile city here in Athi River to meet the specific needs of such investors," Mohamed said.
He expressed optimism that focusing on specific sectors of the economy and bold industrialization measures will allow Kenya to attain its Vision 2030 GDP targets almost nine years ahead of schedule.
The textile sector, Mohamed noted, bears a latent potential for creating massive employment to a large educated labor pool with high productivity and remains a key economic indicator for potential investors to explore.
Kenya is already providing incentives and benefits under the EPZ programme which include; 10-year corporate and withholding tax holidays for zone developers, manufacturing and service enterprises Perpetual Duty, VAT and Stamp Duty Exemptions, Green channel facilitation and aftercare provided for Customs, Immigration, Statutory requirements and Utility connections. Endi
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