of America. This is a powerful affirmation of Kenya's growing relevance in the global investment landscape and as we all know capital always has options but today it has chosen to be here and that really matters.
Now ladies and gentlemen, conferences often develop a certain reputation. Good sessions, engaging panels and of course sometimes excellent coffee and tea. Yes. In this session over the next couple of days the coffee and tea will remain proudly Kenyan of course but we have infused something different in this conference some real focus on tangible outcomes which we trust you will experience over the next three days.
And now ladies and gentlemen I invite you to turn your eyes to the screen as we showcase a short video on Kenya's investment dynamic. I thank you.
Kenya, the largest economy in East and Central Africa and the sixth largest on the African continent, offers investors a stable market growing at a rate of 5% annually. This isn't just the place to pause, it's a place to scale. Located at the heart of Africa, Kenya is an established and mature democracy with over $50 trillion in global market access and trade corridors connecting economies and people. Kenya offers scale, stability and speed for global capital.
From agriculture to apparel and leather manufacturing and much more, Kenya produces for the world. From our fertile lands to global shelves, Kenya feeds the world with quality and consistency, exporting tea, coffee, flowers, avocados, nuts, and herbs to every continent.
From electric mobility, pharmaceuticals to green innovation and technology, we are building the industries of tomorrow. Here power is renewable with over 93% green energy driving industry, cities and sustainable growth. From smart buildings to eco lodges to electric vehicles, Kenya is redefining sustainable living at scale.
From all corners of our country to the region's capital, our road, rail, and air networks connect businesses to opportunities. This is Africa's silicon savannah, where technology powers inclusion and innovation drives growth. Fintech moves billions daily with mobile money connecting people and driving businesses. Home to 85% of East Africa's tech startups, Kenya is the continent's digital gateway. Ranked number one in Africa on startup funding.
At the Nairobi Securities Exchange, capital flows with confidence, fueling enterprise and new frontiers of opportunity. One of the best performing stock exchanges in Africa. Supported by a robust banking and financial ecosystem, Kenya is a regional financial hub on the continent across special economic zones and industrial parks with progressive fiscal benefits. Opportunities scale fast.
Invest in Kenya for clear incentives, investor protection and a robust legal framework. Our greatest strength is our people. Young, skilled, visionary. They are not waiting for the future. They are building it every day in every corner of our land. Home to more than 300 multinationals and growing and the only United Nations headquarters in the global south including UNEP, Kenya stands as the environmental capital of the world. We are predictable, competitive and open for business.
Kenya offers high quality of life, vibrant cities, world-class hospitality and extraordinary natural landscapes. A place where global talent can live, work and belong. Kenya is where Africa's industrial growth takes shape. If you are looking for scale, speed, certainty, and the gateway to Africa's fastest growing markets, invest in Kenya because the future is already here.
The future is already here. Doesn't that make you so proud to be Kenyan? For those of you who are Kenyan and those who are not, God bless you. Your Excellency will now progress to a panel discussion. And at this point, allow me to invite Mr. Yinka Adigok who's Africa editor for Semafor who is going to be the moderator. We can have the seats come on stage please. Who's going to be the moderator for this particular panel discussion and the discussion is on global capital regional perspectives investing in Kenya Kenya's next growth frontier. Welcome sir. Let's give him a clap as he comes and he'll introduce his panel this morning.
Good morning everyone. Good morning your excellencies. Thank you very much for having me. It's a true honor to partner with this event. My name is Yinka Adigok. I am the Africa editor for Semafor. Semafor is a very young startup, a media company which we started and is the only US-based publication which started with an Africa edition from the very start and that's because we believe obviously we believe in Africa, we believe in Africans, we believe in the promise of this continent and we really believe in Kenya because we started our operations here with journalists here and colleagues here.
This discussion we're about to have is really truly at the heart of much of what we have been pursuing with Semafor. We've told the stories of investment and the stories of everything from technology and geopolitical expansion across the continent. And we really see global capital as key to the way the various countries of Africa develop and move forward. And what we're going to get into today is we're going to have exporters and investors, manufacturers and service players in Kenya who will get into the details of what we're trying to do here.
I'm going to quote back the president's own words from the pamphlet that we have that Africa is no longer on the margins of global trade. It's at the very heart of it and Kenya is at the heart of that discussion of what we're trying to achieve here. At this point I think it's I'll get my panelists to join us. And I'll start off with James Donovan from ADC.
Please join in welcoming Miss Jane Karuku, chief executive of East African Breweries. Olivia Streiel from Flamingo Group International. Shima Fan from the World Bank.
All right. Thank you very much for being here. This is like I said, an excellent panel in different sectors of the economy, in different sectors of Kenya's economy, but also the sub region. So, Miss Karuku, I'll start with you and you've just been involved in a very exciting transaction where you know, ownership change off. Okay, there we're back. What I would like to get into is what does your transaction where you ownership change from Diageo to Asahi in Japan, what does that say about why people should invest in Kenya, right? What does it say about the opportunities, the mergers and acquisition opportunities in Kenya?
Thank you very much. Very happy to be here. Very happy to sell Kenya. I think our recent transaction I only have two words. Confidence in the country. I think EABL history from Kenya since 1922. A truly Kenyan company and our grandfathers Diageo sold to another grandfather called Asahi from Japan at the 65% at the value of $2.3 billion. The currency is great for Kenya. This put the total enterprise value at $4.8 billion.
So we are starting to get some currency not shillings but in dollars which really means that we are truly to the world into the world stage and I think it gives us confidence as Kenyans as Africans because its employees are fully Kenyan fully East African our consumers are from the region our suppliers are from the region we always had a vision we are now at 78% local content from farmers to any other supplier who comes into our ecosystem. We are then proudly totally integrated from farmers to 4.8 billion dollars that is totally integrated from grain to glass as we call it from farmer to consumption.
Okay. Is very very good and I think it's an example of what we can do as Africans what we can do as Kenyans and if you think about the last 12 months there's so many transactions that have been announced and I'm sure there are very very many more to start being worked on of similar value hopefully. Thank you thank you very much for that. Olivia I'll come to you and just I'm kind of fascinated by your business. You're one of the largest employers in the country. Just talk a little bit about what Flamingo does as an exporter of flowers and really why it shows what it tells us about Kenya at this point in time.
Thank you. Delighted to be here. So Flamingo is one of the world's largest exporters of fair trade flowers and vegetables. We were founded in Kenya 42 years ago on the fervent belief that Kenyans could do anything as well as anyone on the world stage. I like to think of us as one of the original offshorers. So we took vegetables and fruit that were being grown in the UK and Europe and basically started offshoring it into Kenya. Over the decades we have been basically living the bottom-up economy that you guys are driving. So steadily every quarter, every month adding more and more value to what started as basic crops. And so now 42 years later we employ 13,000 Kenyans and we have moved into effectively into manufacturing. So we are creating through bouquets and so that is completely disintermediating and taking business away from other countries. So crops that used to go into bouquets and get assembled in UK and Europe are now being grown here on your farms in Naivasha and Mount Kenya.
In your video you said Kenya's greatest strength you have many strengths but Kenya's greatest strength are Kenyans and we really believe that. So with every bit of value add that we're bringing onto the farms and it brings complexity it brings mind-boggling complexity. And so one of my favorite parts of getting to host visits we've hosted CS Lee, we've hosted CS Kagwe, PS Abubakar. And my favorite parts is when you guys get to see your Kenyans and how smart our Kenyans are and how they're steadily introducing and dealing with the complexity that means that we compete on the world stage.
Yeah, that thank you. I mean that is the ambition for all governments all business leaders is how we move up the value chain. It's the biggest challenge for all African countries especially. James, I wanted to come to you before I get on to the World Bank, but I want to come to you first to just talk a little bit about your very particular sector, the BPO sector, which again is a huge bet on Kenyans just to tie into what Olivia was talking about there. How is that sector developing? What are the advantages that Kenya has that has really sort of boosted your business? Because you started in the Philippines and you've moved here and expanded across the continent, but Kenya has been a big bet for you.
First of all, I'd like to first of all, thank you for being here. President Dr. Ruto, President Chapo, it's a privilege to be here to be part of this a small part of this story of Kenya. We started as a business process outsourcing firm 30 years ago and about 13 years ago we looked at the continent and said where could we sort of begin our footprint and what we looked for is trust partnership all of the things that people look for at citing a location. The established powerhouses in our business of back office historically were South Africa and Egypt. So those would have been natural locations for us to go to. But what we did is try to look for the what's next. So 13 years ago we looked for that trusted partnership and one of the things we do work a fair amount of work with the UN UNEP UN habitat and to be very frank there's been 60 years of a strong partnership with Kenya and the UN as a demonstrated platform. So we took that and said this is a place that we'd like to start and be able to start educating our clients that this is the opportunity and then what we found was what everybody says yes Kenyan opportunity talent capability all of those things we found in abundance.
But what we find today in 2026 as everybody knows I'm sure looking at your small screens we're living in a changing world whether that's because we're shifting to multipolar or AI is intervening. Now where am I going with this is Kenya actually happens to be at a fantastic juncture to be able to position the right talent with you with AI that can bring Kenyan professionals up the food chain. Historically back office services BPO is as the industry is called starts off with data servicing or call center. My point being is with technology now Kenya can actually jump up the value chain faster and start to deliver more high value services versus starting at a lower base. And that's what we find very exciting. As what I say is we're a 30-year overnight success. We operate in 25 countries but our biggest footprint and expansion to date is actually in Kenya. We're establishing a new site which will have at least about 2,500 new staff in Kenya. So we're very excited about this location.
Thank you. That's fantastic. I do want to come back to you in a second on some details on moving up that value chain. I really want I think that's it's going to be a key theme today. Shima could you please just talk a little bit about particularly from the World Bank perspective but the broader way one should think about policy and how that influences the environment to which all the people on this panel you know they how they deliver how they grow. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Thank you. Thank you very much. Well first we've been here for 60 years. We've invested billions of dollars in the Kenya economy in the last six decades. I personally I also took a few years off from the World Bank about 15 20 years ago worked as a senior executive in the private sector. What do investors look for in a country? Clearly they look for political and economic stability, policy stability. They look for market size and they look for quality inputs like labor, low cost and they look for good infrastructure. I think the short video you've just shown has done a wonderful job in really highlighting the strengths. Mind you, Kenya is the largest economy in East Africa with a GDP of about $125 billion in 2024 and is likely to get to be above $130 billion in 2025. That's a very sizable market.
But on top of that, Kenya is the gateway to East Africa, a market of over 300 million people. And on top of that, Kenya has multiple trade agreements with Asia, with Europe, with North America. And that means that investors in Kenya will also have preferential entries to all of those markets. So it's not just the Kenyan market and it's not just the East African market, it's not just the African market, it's actually the global market. I think that's for me if as an investor I think this is very very important. Second, a number of you mentioned the quality of your people. It's the Kenyan people. Kenya ranks the highest on the World Bank's human capital index. You have a fantastic education system. And that population has it's not just people who can do jobs. They also have this tremendous entrepreneurial spirit. If you look at Kenya's mobile phones payment services and M-Pesa it's everywhere and Kenya is a front runner in that area.
I think for investors that the advances you've had in mobile payment actually lays the foundation for significant growth in the kind of areas you're working in in agriculture in financial services and in many other sectors. So I think these are really the kind it's a combination of these the depth the breadth of the market the quality of the people and the entrepreneurial spirit and I also wanted to add I think Kenya's infrastructure has made important strides in the last decade we have seen significant improvements in transport the video shows that over 93% of Kenya's energy is renewable. That is a huge advantage for manufacturers who wanted to do sustainable and green manufacturing. So this is a place that has enormous potential for investment and we at the World Bank we're putting our money where our mouth is. Our current portfolio, the active investment portfolio in Kenya at the moment is about $7 billion and our private sector arm IFC has invested in its active portfolio of about $1.3 billion dollars and our guarantee agency MIGA is providing hundreds of millions guarantees to investors. So please, this is the place to come if you wanted to help the country to develop and if you want to make money.
Thank you. Thank you. I'm glad that you added the last bit about if you want to make money because frankly that is where capital goes. Jane, I want to come back to you on just this theme of you know moving up the value chain and I'm thinking about it for you at EABL and perhaps as you see the wider sort of manufacturing sector in Kenya. Where do you see the best opportunities for value addition for the country's environment to sort of move up that value chain even within your business but perhaps also other sectors.
Yes. So thank you. So what we've learned over the years is that to create transformation or industrialize you have to be anchored in local value chains. That means you have a very integrated business from source to consumption. And if you look at Kenya, we have so much potential of those value chains. Ours is agriculture. We use barley and so it's totally integrated from the farmer to the consumers. So if you think about the source, you can do this across the whole of agriculture ecosystem and we have a lot of agriculture. You can do it in mining, you can do it in every other sector across the country and then that's one. So make it anchored in the local ecosystem and totally integrated. The other one is we have a growing population and I think my friends talked about it. So every business person coming to Kenya wants to make money. So this market there's huge margins, there's huge consumer base, we're a growing population with a great youth dividend and to an external person that is potential for marketing your products. So is also there's also local market. The third one is that we belong to all these other agreements. So you can produce here and you have external market within COMESA within East Africa and beyond AGOA and all those other great nations who are buying from us and then I think we talked about talent. So I think it all comes together.
What must underline that is how do we work with governments to ensure that the policies the regulatory frameworks are supportive of the end game that is to make to even from an education perspective. Do we have the right skills? Yes, we have great talent and we are skilled. Or are we keeping up in the future digitization? We looking for talent in digitization who are great young minds who are digitally led in thought and in everything that they do and we do need to keep channeling that talent out from our marketplaces. So I think those would be like the four or five talent regulatory policies governance frameworks in country market access is there local value chains that are from here to Timbuktu we have very very many I think those would be the ones and I think together then we can really make Kenya great in terms of an investment destination. I mean our investment was the first one I think is the biggest from an acquisition in recent times from the Japanese mostly it's been from Europe or from the US. So something is changing globally and we do need to ride that tide by doing the right things.
How integrated does that need to be those value chains with other African countries or neighbors even in East Africa given the nature of your business?
I think the way we are moving forward in Africa we are becoming more integrated than we've ever been. So something from me coming from Uganda or in COMESA from Mozambique and being manufactured in Kenya and going back to Congo I think that's the way we should be doing these things because we are bigger together. And the market the source then becomes very competitive. So as an industrialist you don't have to import things from very very far. It is within your local vicinity. But I mean local local like not so far in the regions you get caught up with straits and stuff like that like what we are seeing today.
Okay. Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you very much for that. Jane, Olivia, can I just ask you just about sort of the export environment right now that you know there's a lot going on in the world and there are sort of various challenges around tariffs and what have you. What is the environment for you right now? What advantage do Kenyan exporters have at this time?
So we bring in a couple million dollars a week in exports into the Kenyan economy. So everything we make and grow here by Kenyans is exported. And I think of us as competing against four to five other big horticulture countries. So whenever I'm talking to the Kenyan government, I've got a bullseye thinking about how Kenya is doing versus say Ecuador, Colombia, the Netherlands and local markets in UK and Europe. And for me, the formula really is the way for Kenya to make money and us to make money is one to differentiate on resilience. That means two things if I have to simplify it down. One is really around the supply chain. Whenever I meet with CS Lee, it's all about freight, air freight, sea freight, the resilience and reliability of the chain getting out of Kenya. And two is really around human capital around resilience. We get so many shocks. I mean, all of us in the room think about the environment in which we're operating, whether it's geopolitical shocks around us, or climate shocks. And we need our people to be always risk assessing, always coming up with plans B and C and planning ahead for those plans. And there is no group of people more resilient than the Kenyans. I think this is one of our superpowers. Whatever comes at us, we come up with another way.
The second part of the formula is value for money. And so obviously we are competing against Ethiopia on value for money, we're competing against Colombia. And one of the big things we've been driving is, which you're probably way ahead of us on, is lean manufacturing and lean techniques. And so we have this amazing training and capability program with your local universities in Nairobi where we're systematically every month sending our people to operational excellence and Kaizen training which helps us continually remove waste and excess cost out of our system which is working and that's what's enabled us to moving up the value chain on manufacturing. And then the third formula is really environmental footprint which you said you guys are in a brilliant position in Kenya on environmental footprint. Now the interest in our markets on carbon for example ebbs and flows with the degree of severity of geopolitical shocks but we know that this is coming and Kenya has such a great case to play. So again, it's about resilience, it's about value for money, and it's about environmental footprint. And that's what's making us ever more competitive against other growing regions like Colombia, the Netherlands, and Ethiopia.
