Kenya’s President William Ruto has extended business invitations to American technology companies to encourage them to start operations in Kenya, and also set up regional offices in the country.
The president made this known while on tour in Silicon Valley, USA on Saturday. He met with a number of tech company CEOs and executives, including Apple’s, Tim Cook, Intel Corporation’s, Patrick Gelsinger, Google’s Chief Financial Officer of Alphabet, Ruth Porat, and Microsoft’s chief operating officer, Brad Smith.
President Ruto mentioned to the executives that Kenya has a favourable environment for investments in technology and manufacturing, and that the government was ready to help their companies thrive.
“Kenya is a full package investment destination; economically stable, entrepreneurial, secure, innovative with a favourable tax environment, skilled labour force, technological expertise, green energy credentials and a gateway for six undersea fibre-optic cables providing reliable data connectivity,” he said.
The American tech executives have expressed interest in Kenya being an ideal investment destination. Apple’s Tim Cook revealed that the smartphone giant is considering establishing a developer’s academy in Kenya, and also showed interest in Kenya’s green data potential.
Intel’s Mr Gelsinger, and Microsoft’s Mr Smith, have also agreed on Kenya being an appealing investment location with impressive returns. Mr Smith noted that, however, that despite such investment potential, the East African country was largely unexplored in the technology field.
Speaking on that fact, Google’s Ms Porat mentioned that Google was intent on investing a billion dollars in Africa to strengthen its digital footprint and innovation initiatives.
Visa Global President, Oliver Jenkyn, was also among the executives who praised Kenya’s appealing investment environment. He stated that Visa owed its strong presence in the East African market to Kenya’s help.
Due to that Visa has singled out Kenya as the only African country to host Visa’s global, digital innovation studio. He added that Visa is committed to investing $1 billion in Africa, with most of the funds going to Kenya.
