The last time a British Prime Minister visited Kenya, Land Rover was the official government car, East African Industries (now Unilever) was market leader and most Kenyans banked at Barclays.
Today, unlike her predecessor the late Margaret Thatcher, UK Prime Minister Theresa May faces a very changed Nairobi as she kicks off her maiden official visit.
In Kenya, Mrs May will meet President Uhuru Kenyatta before visiting British troops and a business school. A State dinner hosted by Mr Kenyatta will conclude the trip.
"I am proud to be leading this ambitious trip to Africa and to become the first UK Prime Minister in over 30 years to visit Kenya," said Mrs May said ahead of the visit. The late Thatcher, popularly known as the Iron Lady, was the first and remains the only British prime minister to have visited Kenya in 1988.
STIFF CHALLENGE
Mrs May’s visit comes at a time when British corporate giants such as Barclays, British luxury car maker Land Rover, Standard Chartered Bank, British American Tobacco and Unilever – which once straddled the Kenyan consumer goods market like a colossus – are struggling to fend off stiff challenge from the more aggressive and flexible local players.
The prime minister will bring a trade delegation with her on a chartered Royal Air Force Voyager in an attempt to boost Britain’s post-Brexit export prospects.
But she also comes at a time when London’s influence in the economic and political sphere has been speculated to have waned.
Kenya’s preference for countries in the far -east for business and development financing under retired president Mwai Kibaki’s reign in power and later his predecessor President Kenyatta has dislodged European power-houses including the UK from their traditionally long-held positions as the country’s leading sources of foreign direct investment.
DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
This change in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) pecking order has deepened in the past couple of years as the majority of developed countries – under the shock waves of debt crises – cut back on foreign investment while emerging economies scaled up their search for new business opportunities in frontier markets.Though the many battles British corporations are fighting in Kenya may look purely commercial, keen followers of Kenya’s diplomatic positioning say it partly reflects the decline in London’s political influence in Nairobi that began in earnest under former President Kibaki.China has particularly become Kenya’s leading source of FDI through investment in infrastructure, a move which has continually consolidated its new-found […]