South Sudan President Salva Kiir. FILE
By George Omondi,
Kenya is extending its northward export market
drive to Khartoum even as it fights to bring the warring factions in
South Sudan to a negotiating table.
The Kenya Export Promotion Council (EPC) officials
and a number investors are expected to show up at the week-long
International Fair of Khartoum scheduled at the end of this month,
hoping to negotiate market space and investment deals.
“A number of Kenyan products are already selling
in Sudan but we treat it as market with a lot of unexploited potential,”
EPC official Anthony Sawaya told the Business Daily last week.
Unlike South Sudan which has warmed up to Kenya,
local firms are yet to make significant inroads in Sudan with 2012
exports figures falling sharply to Sh6.5 billion from Sh22bn in 2011
before the two states split.
Kenya mainly exports tea (28 per cent) cigarettes
(12 per cent) and cement (4.5 per cent) to Sudan. Other export products
include vegetables, medicines, vegetable fats and oils, plastic, soap,
electrical machinery and telecommunications equipment.
Over the same period, official data shows Kenya
imported Sh955 million worth of goods in exchange, listed mainly as
machinery, steel structures, pumps, machine tools and motor vehicles.
The Sudanese officials have been dangling
preferential investment packages under the country’s Encouragement Act
and Free Zones Act in the run up to the trade fair, hoping to woo many
Kenyans to put investment capital in the northern Africa state.
“This (trade fair) will provide great
opportunities for Sudan companies to establish relations with Kenyan
companies,” Sudanese Free Zone and Markets Company Ltd, organiser of
the trade fair said in a statement.
“The prospects of investments are even better with
the grand infrastructural projects in highways dams, bridges-energy
projects still available in addition to the exceptional concessions
included in the investment.”
Kenya trade officials, however, reckon that the
renewed dalliance with Sudan does not represent an opportunity to seal
the gap should South Sudan’s military clashes degenerate to disruptive
civil war.
Together with Uganda, Kenya which has made strong
commercial links with South Sudan in the last two years has been leading
the efforts to build peace between President Salva Kiir and his former
deputy Riek Machar.
“South Sudan has been and still is one of our
biggest clients in the region,” said Mr William Ojonyo, director of Key
logistics Ltd and former chairman of Kenya International Freight
Warehousing Association’s Nairobi branch.
South Sudan is a key importer of Kenya’s
foodstuffs, manufactured goods, medicines, chemicals and textile. In
2012, Kenya’s export to South Sudan hit Sh18 billion.
A number of Kenyan firms — among them Kenya Commercial Bank, UAP Insurance and Equity Bank — have established operations in Juba.
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