Business stakeholders have been asked to address corruption to improve on industrialization.
Julius Korir, the industrialisation secretary in the ministry of industrialization expressed fear that the country’s industrialisation sector could face a downward trend if the vice is not addressed.
“Uganda and Tanzania attracts more investors than Kenya yet we have more potential than them,” he said.
He said that there is need for the country and counties to build a stronger industrialised economy where the manufacturing will contribute to the GDP of the country.
“The counties should allocate funds to the textile and apparel sector in the next financial year as the industry is getting more competitive,” said Korir.
He urged the counties to position themselves to take advantage of the industries that are coming up within the Great lakes, Rift valley and coastal regions.
“Our founding President Kenyatta once sent food aid to South Korea in 1972 when they had a food crisis, yet today they are more industrialized and food secure than us.
We need as a country to ask ourselves where the rains started beating us to establish what went wrong as our major challenge is the implementation of policies,” said Korir.
He added that there is need for the implementation of the brilliant policies that have been developed over the years.
“We have made a deliberate effort to benchmark with some of the leading economies in the world such as China,USA and Germany,” he said.
He added that there is need to partner with the vision 2030 secretariat and programmes to fast track the achievements of our business goals.
The stakeholders have been asked to improve their ways of doing business and protect investors.
He said, “Over the next 5 to 10 years we must take advantage of key trends to drive industrialisation. It is becoming costly to produce in China and that is why they are moving in Africa.”
The counties are asked to set up a job creation and industrialisation strategy by increasing manufacturing and creating additional job opportunities.
“We want to start ranking the 47 counties based on the rate at which they are doing business,” said the industrialisation secretary.
Julius Korir was speaking yesterday in Kisumu after meeting with Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) and the Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) stakeholders in the town.