Kenya has broken ahead of the pack in the scramble for Korean investors by marketing herself as a top investment destination at a pre-summit conference held in Seoul two weeks before the Korea-Africa Summit.
The inaugural Korea-Africa Summit is scheduled to take place between June 4 and 5, 2024.
It will offer Korean investors the opportunity to explore market entry strategies into Africa and enhance their understanding of cooperation measures, particularly in light of the full implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area(AfCFTA) agreement.
President William Ruto is among those set to attend the summit which comes days after he completed another one in USA. During his USA trip, Ruto got deals worth billions of shillings.
Leaders from all the 54 African countries are expected to attend the Summit that will enhance trade between Korea and Africa which currently accounts for only three percent of Korean exports and one percent of imports.
Kenya is exploring areas of cooperation with African countries across all sectors, including infrastructure, agriculture, healthcare, technology, energy and social development.
Kenya’s ambassador to Korea Prof. Emmy Kipsoi told an investment conference on May 24 2024, that Nairobi is open for business.
“We are the most stable democracy in East Africa founded on the rule of law which provides a predictable and safe environment for investments,” said the ambassador.
“On a pure dollar basis, Kenya receives more venture capital than any other country on the continent, dramatically outperforming other leading countries, including Nigeria, Egypt, and South Africa, when scaled to their respective gross domestic products,” she said.
The pre-summit conference which showcased Kenya’s potential to Korean investors was organised by Seoul law firm Jipyong LLC and Nairobi based legal firm G&A Advocates LLP.
The two law firms entered into a collaboration arrangement in April in order to support Korean companies interested in entering the African market.
Additionally, the partnership will provide support for African companies seeking to do business in South Korea and in the larger Asian region.
“Kenya has a raft of investment promotion laws with attractive features such as fiscal and non-fiscal benefits, multiple dispute resolution mechanisms including specialised dispute bodies, and policy fostering an open economy and trade liberalization,” G&A’s partner and Head of Corporate, Commercial Sylvia Kithinji told Korean investors at the seminar in Seoul.
“Necessary protections exist in law and select bilateral agreements to safeguard against key threats to investment such as expropriation, double taxation, monopolies, infringement of intellectual property rights,” she said.
Jiopyong LLC which used the event to ramp up support for Kenya as an investment hub for Korean investors said Nairobi has made concerted trade and investment policies which makes it attractive.
“The government’s medium term economic growth plan focused on spurring industrialization has driven demand for infrastructure and offered a strong foundation for the emergence of promising sectors including construction, manufacturing, healthcare and green energy,” said Min Chung, Jipyong’s Group Leader of Business Intelligence.
Kenya is already a hub for several Korean companies like Samsung Electronics, Hyundai, Daewoo and Korea Telecom. Nairobi, however, wants to use the summit to ramp up more foreign direct investments from Seoul.
Kenya’s main exports to Korea include coffee, titanium ore, scrap copper among others.
Kenya imports includes iron and steel, organic chemicals, machinery, nuclear reactors, boilers, manmade staple fibers, among others.
Kenya is among eight African nations expected to benefit from South Korea’s K-rice belt initiative aimed at providing farmers with quality rice varieties and sharing top-notch farming know-how.
This is among those expected to take centre stage at the planned South Korea-Africa Summit slated for June 4 to 5 in Seoul.
There will be other investments to be announced during the meeting.
Kenya’s president William Ruto has already confirmed attendance at the summit themed ‘The Future We Make Together, Shared Growth, Sustainability and Solidarity’.
Last October, Seoul signed a memorandum of understanding with Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Ghana, Cameroon, Uganda, Kenya and Guinea Bissau aimed at ensuring their sustainable food security.
As part of Seoul’s official development assistance (ODA), the project calls for supplying high-yield rice varieties and agricultural machines, helping Africa build irrigation and other necessary facilities, and sharing experiences and technologies regarding crop cultivation and distribution.
The initiative aims to harvest some 2,000 tons of rice varieties in Africa this year, with the figure to rise to over 10,000 tons combined per year starting 2027, a level enough to feed around 30 million people in the underdeveloped nations annually, it added.
“As a long-term, comprehensive supportive project, the K-rice belt programme is expected to contribute to fundamentally resolving the food shortage problem in Africa and to enable Africa to achieve the sustainable development of the agriculture industry.
During a session of the Group of Seven summit held in Japan in May last year, President Yoon Suk Yeol vowed to enhance South Korea’s support for nations facing a food crisis through various ODA programs and to double the country’s food aid to the World Food Program to 100,000 tons per year.
The East Asian nation is exploring areas of cooperation with African countries across all sectors, including the economy, healthcare, and social development.
The Asian nation wants to achieve $10 billion in agricultural exports in 2023, promoting IT-mediated smart farming technologies and the capabilities of strong local players.
The goal is to push up the figure further to $15 billion in 2027.
Rice is the only grain that has registered a self-sufficiency rate of a robust 84.6 percent in Korea as about 80 percent of other crops are imported.
This builds on already strong relations with Kenya, recently cemented by President William Ruto’s official three-day visit to Seoul soon after his election, where the country sought to deepen collaborations in ICT, education, pharmaceutical and infrastructure, among other areas.
According to the Kenya Economic Survey 2023, the value of imports from South Korea increased from Sh22.3 billion in 2021 to Sh50.2 billion in 2022, mainly due to increased imports of kerosene type jet fuel. Exports equally increased to Sh6.1 billion, from Sh3.9 billion.
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