Kenya ranked 3 globally on trade growth potential

Kenya is ranked third out of 66 economies showing best potential in future trade growth, a new report by multinational financier Standard Chartered Plc shows.

The study considered improvements to physical and digital infrastructure, ecommerce and ease of doing business.

Cote d’Ivoire comes on top followed by India on the list of the top 20 economies which is dominated by countries in Africa and Asia.

The ranking took account of a range of variables grouped into three pillars — economic dynamism, readiness to trade and export diversity. Kenya benefited from improving business climate generally.

“Côte d’Ivoire and Kenya are leading the pack and Ghana also performs well. The particularly strong trade readiness exhibited by Côte d’Ivoire and Kenya is driven by improvements to their business environments, with enhanced digital and physical infrastructure, and moves to improve their ease of doing business,” said Stanchart in the report.

“Although these are smaller economies that cannot be expected to match the overall trading potential of larger trading powers, our index shows that they are progressing quickly, albeit from a low starting point.”

Some of the more visible changes in Kenya have been in road and railway development, which has made it easier to move goods both within the country and to trading partners in the region.

The World Bank reported this year in its ease of doing business report that Kenya was among the most improved in the past one year.

The Bretton Woods institution ranked Kenya position 61 globally in 2019 – an improvement of 19 positions in a year and 31 positions in two years – and in the top seven in annual improvement thanks largely to progress made in registering property, protecting minority investors, paying taxes and access to credit.

Kenya also introduced a new insolvency law, modernising its old law to making it easier for companies to resolve their financial problems.