Turkel Fair Organization chairman, Bulent Erten (right) and Turkish Ambassador to Kenya, Tuncer Kayalar
The bi-lateral economic environment between Kenya and Turkey which has for long been characterized by the trade between the two countries is set to change with the Turkish government’s plans of scaling up its investment capacity in the country.
As with majority of economic ventures globally, bi-lateral trade between Kenya and Turkey was not spared by last year’s global financial crisis with the value of trade plummeting from a high of US$245 million in 2008 to US$70 million last year. This halted a rally of growth in trade between the two nations which was at a low of US$50 million in 2004.
Though projections for this year look promising going by data captured for the first four months of the year with the value of trade growing from US$17 million last year to US$47 million this year, the Turkish Ambassador to Kenya Tuncer Kayalar said more effort is being directed towards growing the current investment capacity by Turkish nationals.
He said the move was aimed at positioning Kenya as Turkey’s regional trade and investment hub as it eyes the coming into effect of the East Africa Community Common Market Protocol and also the larger COMESA region with both markets providing a 130 million and 500 million market scope respectively.
In line with this, Kayalar added that the embassy is already at the initial stages of setting up an Export Processing Zone for Turkish investors with interests being in the textile, electronics, footwear, cleaning products and cosmetics sectors of the economy and aimed at value addition to Kenyan raw materials. “We want Kenyans to be exporting finished products as compared to the current situation where the country is only known for its raw materials exports.”
With the energy situation in the country still a thorny issue as the country moves towards the achievement of Vision 2030, the ambassador added that the embassy was encouraging investors to invest in the energy sector with emphasis being laid on geothermal energy, wind and solar energy and the supply of generators.
The ambassador was speaking at the official opening of the second East African Turkish Trade Fair saying that the trade exhibition would act as a vehicle to link Turkey’s high quality, good value products with East African companies that poses global re-exporting capabilities.
