Mitumba imports hit Sh12bn despite Uhuru agenda

Nairobi residents a mitumba market in Kamukunji. FILE PHOTO | NMG 

By CONSTANT MUNDA
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Kenyans splurged Sh11.96 billion on importation of second-hand clothes and footwear in the first six months of the year, official data shows, highlighting huge appetite for foreign brands.

The Sh1.77 billion or 17.31 percent growth was despite renewed focus on incentivising struggling domestic leather and textiles industries under the “Big Four” plan.

The import bill for second-hand clothes, popularly called mitumba, rose by Sh1.04 billion or 13.36 percent in the January-June period to hit Sh8.86 billion compared with Sh7.82 billion in the same period of 2018.

This is a further growth over the Sh6.60 billion recorded in the first half of 2017, data collated by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) shows.

Higher quality and relatively lower prices of mitumba have continued to drive demand for the merchandise at expense of locally-made clothes amid higher margins enjoyed traders largely in informal markets.

Spend on footwear, on the other hand, climbed by a third, or Sh720.5 million, to reach nearly Sh3.10 billion in the period over Sh2.38 billion import bill in the first half of last year, the KNBS data shows.

The lucrative second-hand clothing market has seen Chinese traders open shops in Gikomba, Kenya’s largest informal market for mitumba, in recent years to cash in rising demand.

Leather, textiles and agro-processing sub-sectors are largely seen as low-lying fruits to jump-start President Uhuru Kenyatta’s plan to revive and modernise Kenyan factories under the manufacturing pillar of the “Big Four” agenda.

Small-sized factories in leather and textiles business are set to be given incentives such as access to affordable capital through the proposed merger of state-owned development financiers — Kenya Industrial Estates, Development Bank of Kenya, Industrial Development Bank of Kenya.

They are also to be helped in accessing new exports markets and expanding the existing ones largely in Africa through the Integrated National Exports Development and Promotion Strategy, unveiled in July 2018.

Kenya in May 2017 hastily withdrew from a collective East African Community bloc’s resolution to ban mitumba after American suppliers threatened to match the move with a retaliatory action.

The suppliers had warned of lobbying Congressmen to block Kenya’s duty- and quota-free access to the US market under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa).