The County Government of Kiambu in partnership with other counties from the Mount Kenya region is working towards establishing an economic block to ease trade between member counties.
Speaking at a traders forum in Limuru on Thursday, the Kiambu County Director of Tourism Ms Wanjiru Mwangi said that plans were underway between Kiambu, Nyeri, Murang’a, Laikipia, Tharaka Nithi, Nyandarua and Kirinyaga counties to have their laws harmonised in order to break trade barriers which have hampered trade.
She said that each county that was part of the agreement was expected to make some compromises that would allow business people from all member counties to be able to smoothly conduct business within the boundaries of any of these counties.
Ms Mwangi said that the decision to establish an economic block was motivated by the fact that no county could survive exclusively and independently of other counties thus requiring the establishment of a mutually benefiting relationship.
She said that currently, a number of individual laws governing specific counties were limiting development and it was therefore necessary to align the laws in order to foster development.
She said that inter-county trading was going to be the next big business idea explaining that counties would earn much revenue from exchange of resources. She said that Kiambu County was at an advantage considering her natural resources which included coffee, tea, dairy and poultry farming and numerous subsistence crops and was therefore in a good position to offer these goods to other less endowed counties.
Ms Mwangi also maintained that Kiambu had a lot of labour resources due to its large population, a resource which would be useful to other counties if they needed to hire labour.
Peter Machau, a trader present at the forum said that the agreement would greatly benefit business persons from Kiambu County which would lead to bigger economic growth.