Trade between Kenya and US drops by 25pc cent in a year

Trade between Kenya and the United States dropped by nearly a quarter in 2015, in a year that saw the country host US President Barrack Obama.

Latest data from the US Census Bureau, the principal data agency of the American government, shows the US exported goods worth $943.4 million (Sh94.4 billion), which is 42 per cent down from the $1,640.7 million (Sh164 billion) recorded in 2014.

On its part, Kenya’s exports to the nation shrunk marginally by three per cent from the $591.3million to the $573.1million exported last year.

The data corroborates part of statistics from the Economic Survey 2016 that shows imports from the country dropped by 25 per cent from Sh168 billion in 2014 to Sh126 billion last year. Analysts forecast that this trend is set to continue this year.

Between January and April 2015 to January 2016, exports to the US dropped by $400 million (Sh40 billion), while imports dropped from by $116 million (Sh11.6 billion), according to the US census bureau.

Kenya’s 24 per cent drop is bigger than that of Egypt, which also witnessed a 19 per cent drop, despite the north African country having been engulfed in political chaos between 2013 and 2014.

“The decline can generally be attributed to the consistent touting of China as the new economic partner. This only increased imports from the East without increasing exports,” explained Mishael Ondieki, a Kenyan-born author and academician based in California, US.

India and China have remained ahead of the US in the value of imports to Kenya despite growing at a slower pace. By the end of 2015, China had toppled India as the biggest source nation of Kenyan imports after the value of goods from grew by more than 50 per cent to hit Sh320 billion.

India, which has been competing against China, was the second biggest source of imports to Kenya, accounting for Sh252 billion last year.

Ondieki reckons Kenya’s exports to china do not feature in the top 20 countries. It’s surpassed by such countries as Somalia, Rwanda and Afghanistan. “The sad reality is that Kenya sells goods and commodities worth $519 million to the US as one of the major importers of Kenyan goods and commodities, while China imports an abysmal amount from Kenya.”

At the same time, Kenya buys goods and commodities worth $4.9 billion from China compared to $900 million spent to buy from the US.

Uganda is Kenya’s leading export destination, growing by 12.8 per cent last year to hit Sh69 billion.