Kenya’s industrial sector has been in the news for the right reason recently; thanks to State initiatives to jump-start a sector that has remained stagnant over the past decade.

The latest is the Treasury’s move to change procurement laws to reserve the government’s

larger contracts to local firms, especially those shepherded by women and the youth, to spur fresh demand for local enterprises.

This is what Kenya needs to rev up jobs, spur fresh demand for local enterprises and move towards its ambition to be a middle income country by 2030.

So far, the industrial sector is Kenya’s weak engine. Manufacturing stagnated a long time ago, though it has been the driving force of other successful emerging economies like China.

Ten years ago, Kenya’s industrial sector accounted for about 10.5 per cent of the country’s economy and its share has remained little changed at 10.3 per cent despite a decline in the portion of agriculture from 30 per cent to about 23 per cent.

The agro-based sector has been munched robust growth of the service industry, particularly transport and telecommunications, underlined by growth in the telecoms market and innovations like money transfer services.

The problem with this type of new economy is its thin supply chain, which illustrates its ability to rev up jobs and the fact that it cannot generate a bigger export business to balance an economy skewed towards excessive imports.

This is the reason we are applauding the government’s move to leverage on its spending power to spur demand for local goods.

We hope the State institutions will this time comply with this directive that was first introduced in 2011 but with little success due to capacity and quality concerns.

This implies that the State should move beyond the protectionist interventions and create an environment where the economy can attract global manufacturing giants.

Currently, it seems the business environment is not conducive enough to attract big industrialists. We need to ensure that our utilities like electricity and water are sound.

Regulatory bottlenecks and corruption must be wiped out while our education system should be upgraded. Therefore, Kenya’s new administration has its work cut out in the quest to turn the country into a regional industrial hub.