Kenya’s Manufacturing Sector at a Mediocre Growth – World Bank

World Bank’s “Jobs in Global Value Chain” (GVC) report shows that Kenya’s growth in the manufacturing sector is awful.

The government of Kenya had an intention to create over one million job opportunities by 2022 in manufacturing industries such as textile, car assembly and food production.

The revelation by the World Bank’s report, however, shows that the pace at which Kenya’s manufacturing sector is growing is wanting.

The report, terming Kenya’s growth as ‘mediocre’, showed that the fastest growing countries in terms of GVC jobs were, Bangladesh, Vietnam, India, and Ethiopia.

Ethiopia has widened its GVC jobs through the textile industry, as compared to Kenya, making Addis Ababa christen itself as the textile hub in Africa, as even Senegal and South Africa cannot match it.

In a bid to see his big four agenda taking shape, President Uhuru sought to revamp the fallen textile industry in Eldoret (Rivatex), which he says will create around 3000 job opportunities.

Manufacturing being one of the pillars of the Big Four Agenda, the president also has plans to reopen Kisumu Cotton Mills (Kicomi).

The reason behind revamping these manufacturing industries that were once vibrant is so that, as they help in job creation, they will also help improve the countries Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from the current nine percent to 15 percent.

As at now, the report by World Bank reveals that Kenya’s global value chain share of textile has significantly decreased in 14 years to 2014 from 1.66 percent to 0.65 percent.

The report which places Ethiopia at the top in GVC jobs before Kenya and Senegal, says that while Kenya and Senegal are doing well in food production, Ethiopia is good at both textile and food production.

Ethiopia’s GVC share of textile is reported to have increased to 2.99 percent up from 2.46 percent in 14 years to 2014.