Nairobi to host US business moguls

President Uhuru Kenyatta will open a US-Kenya bilateral trade summit in Nairobi tomorrow.

The summit will be attended by top government officials and investors from both countries.

The one-day meeting has been organised by the American Chamber of Commerce.

US Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade Gilbert Kaplan will lead a delegation of more than 70 business leaders to engage the Government and local businesses on opportunities around the Big Four agenda of universal healthcare, manufacturing, affordable housing and food security

More than 300 participants are expected at the summit, with top-level speakers including President Donald Trump’s adviser for African trade, Jay Ireland, US Ambassador to Kenya Robert Godec, Nick Nesbitt, CEO of the Kenya Private Sector Alliance, and former ICT permanent secretary Bitange Ndemo.

The summit comes three years after the 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) co-hosted by Kenya and the US that saw President Barack Obama make his first official visit to the country as president.

“The Global Entrepreneurship Summit put Kenya on the map in terms of standing out as a country where entrepreneurship plays a key role,” explained Maxwell Otieno, CEO of the American Chamber of Commerce in Kenya.

“We want to build on this synergy and make sure it is sustained to allow further engagement. The Government’s Big Four agenda gives us a good platform to engage and shape it for the benefit of Kenya’s and the US private sectors in the long term,” he said.

Data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics indicates that Kenya’s exports to the US have been increasing at an average of 13 per cent over the past five years from Sh30 billion in 2013 to Sh47 billion in 2017, representing the second largest export market after Pakistan.

The US is also the leading source market for tourists.