Kenyan goods will retain preferential access to Britain after the UK leaves the European Union, Prime Minister Theresa May said during a visit to East Africa’s biggest economy.
“I don’t see Brexit meaning anything detrimental to the strong trade ties that we already have,” she said at a press conference with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta in the capital, Nairobi. “The trade links between the UK and Kenya are already strong, but we want to strengthen them further.”
The country has been negotiating duty-and quota-free access into the EU for products including black tea, flowers, fruit and vegetables jointly with the six-nation East African Community.
May is on the final leg of a three-nation African tour as she seeks to enhance trading opportunities between the UK and the continent. The two nations agreed to repatriate any proceeds of corruption back to Kenya and signed cooperation deals on security. The UK is Kenya’s largest foreign investor, May said.
Kenya exported goods worth 38.5bn shillings ($383mn) to the UK in 2017, a 3% drop from the previous year, and imported the equivalent of 30bn shillings, down from 33.4bn shillings in 2016, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.
“We are not just going out with a begging bowl,” Kenyatta said, while inviting British businesses to invest in his so-called Big Four development programme – affordable housing, universal healthcare, food production and manufacturing. “Kenya is an attractive investment destination.”