Tag Archives: exports

Kenya manufacturing shrinks and exports to region fall, contributing to job losses, raising more questions on #BBIReport

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I had not realized quite how badly this was going, as reported in Standard story this weekend.

No wonder Kenyans On Twitter are energized against the performance of the Government in a seemingly broader and deeper way than in the past when the the economic malaise did not get as deep into the “middle class”.

The employment emergency described by the BBI Report is real, but the proposed solution is rapid industrialization for regional exports. There was already a credibility problem for the current Government as to what in the Building Bridges Initiative would make that type of rapid growth likely to happen. Now we see that the actual performance of the current system is not slow growth but rather a sharp decline in manufacturing and regional exports.

And again, a lot of the problem is thinking based on a relatively paternalistic environment where as long as Kenya “played by the rules” the major world economic powers that could otherwise squash Kenyan manufacturing at least conceptually would cheer Kenya on in developing into a regional manufacturing leader. In the real world of 2013 to date and in the future envisioned by the BBI, Kenyan manufacturing has to compete with Chinese manufacturing both domestically and for regional exports. And China doesn’t have the debt problem that Kenya now has.

Kenya Defense Forces essentially collaborating with Al Shabaab in illegal charcoal exports

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The Institute for Defense Analyses‘ Africa Watch publication (PDF below) has a discussion by Amb. George Ward of the recent report for the UNEP and Interpol on the banned charcoal trade from Somalia (“The Somali Charcoal Industry–Strange Bedfellows”). Rather than shut down the trade that has been the primary revenue source for Al Shabaab, the Kenyan Defense Forces have continued the trade out of Kismayo, which they captured nearly two years ago, along with their present day allies in the Ras Kamboni militia. Further, the KDF is apparently participating in the same overall network of deforestation, charcoal production and brokered export trade that includes continued unmolested shipping by Al Shabaab itself from Baraawe. The traders include businessmen established in Nairobi and Garissa, so Kenya profits on that end too.

Fortunately for the Kenyan taxpayers, the EU and the United States primarily fund the AMISOM mission which has covered the Kenyan forces since mid-2012. Something tells me the charcoal proceeds generated through the KDF are not going to the Kenyan treasury.

africawatch-july-10-2014-vol5.pdf

Of course, other reports of KDF dealing in the charcoal trade have been out there for a long time.  See my post “Kenya’s persistent national security corruption continues to burden Somali endeavors”.

Tabasco in Zanzibar

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Tabasco in Zanzibar

American products are relatively few and far between in East Africa. While there are a more substantial number of products from international companies headquartered in the U.S., actual export of goods from the U.S. is very limited. Here is a product manufactured right here in the deep Gulf South. While the peppers are grown at several locations globally now, as well as at Avery Island, Louisiana, all of the sauce making and bottling is done at the original Avery Island plant.