Kenya miss the AGOA bus

21 Mar '07

3 min read

AGOA (African Growth Opportunity Act) was signed by US government in 2000 to promote economic development in 37 African countries and has now expanded duty-free access to more than 6,400 African products. The apparel exports under AGOA started leaving Kenya during the latter part of year 2000 when there were only few handful of garment factories existed.

Subsequently, many apparel Investors started coming into Kenya in order to make use of the opportunities under AGOA while relying mainly on government initiatives, incentives and support and hoping that investment climate would further improve. Kenya was able to demonstrate to the whole world its ability and capability to produce and export internationally accepted quality garments, produced by Kenyans. The apparel sector continued to boom with more than 35,000 garment factory workers until the industrial unrest erupted in year 2003

Since then, there has been a drastic decline in the exports of apparel under AGOA as many investors in the apparel sector left Kenya to look for greener pastures elsewhere and the exiting factories halted further expansion while reducing their scale of operations.

The government of Kenya has been openly and continually blamed for this situation. The lack of investor confidence and government's commitment and devoid of conducive business environment for investment, operation and expansion of garment factories lead to the closure and relocation of many garment factories, thereby rendering many thousands of workers jobless.

More AGOA News...