Kenya Businessforecast Industry Forecast

The Kenya Business Forecast Report provides essential macroeconomic, political and financial analysis for companies doing business in Kenya. The Kenya Business Forecast Report helps businesses with Kenyan market assessment, strategic planning and decision making to promote growth and profitability in Kenya and is an essential tool for CEOs, Chairmen, Finance Directors/CFOs, Managing Directors, Marketing/Sales Directors with commercial interests in this emerging market.

An influential new analysis of Kenya's political, economic and financial prospects through end-2012, just published by award-winning forecasters, Business Monitor International.

 

 

 

Key Uses of the Kenya Business Forecast Report | Kenya's Political Outlook | Kenya's Economic Outlook | Kenya's Business Environment | Key Kenya Industry Sectors | Kenya BMI's Executive Summary | Our Africa Subscribers | Full Range of BMI's Business Forecast Reports

Key Uses for the Kenya Business Forecast Report

  • Forecast the pace and stability of Kenya's economic and industry growth through end-2012
  • Identify and evaluate adverse political and economic trends in Kenya, to facilitate risk mitigation strategies
  • Assess critical shortcomings of Kenya's business environment that pose hidden barriers and costs to corporate profitability
  • Contextualise Kenya's country risks against Africa regional peers using BMI's country comparative risk ratings system
  • Target business opportunities in Kenya's high-growth industry sectors
  • Evaluate external threats to doing business in Kenya, including currency volatility, the commodity price boom and protectionist policies

The Kenya Business Forecast Report by Business Monitor International includes four major sections: Kenya's Political Outlook, Kenya's Economic Outlook, Kenya's Business Environment and Kenya's Key Industry Sectors.

Kenya's Political Outlook:

What are the political risks to doing business in Kenya over the next 5 years?

BMI's Kenya Country Risk Ratings evaluate the short and medium-term threats posed by government instability, adverse economic policy-making, deterioration in the business environment and external shocks.

Kenya Political Outlook Contents

  • SWOT Analysis for the Kenyan Market
    Political Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats facing Kenya.
  • Political Stability and Risk Assessment for Kenya
    BMI's Risk Ratings assess explicit short and long-term risks to political stability; latest ratings, rankings and trends for Kenya's risk are compared with Africa regional and global averages.
  • Current Administration and Policy-making in Kenya
    BMI profiles key policy-makers and power-brokers in the Kenyan government, assessing threats to the continuity of Kenyan economic policy, and likely changes to the business operating environment through end-2012.
  • Kenyan Foreign Policy
    BMI examines key trends and shifts in Kenya's foreign relations and alignments with Africa neighbours, the United States and Europe, focusing on external influences.

Key Benefits

  1. Benchmark Kenya's risk profile against its neighbours, the global and regional average, allowing easy comparison of risks between key business markets.
  2. Identify, evaluate and anticipate political and security risks to the business environment in Kenya, and to your company's current operations and future plans.
  3. Gain valuable insights into the Kenyan government and policy-making, through BMI's specialist team of analysts and economists, and their exclusive network of private and public sector sources.

Kenya's Economic Outlook:

How will Kenyan economic policy-making and performance impact corporate profitability over 2008-12?

BMI provides fully independent 5-year forecasts for Kenya through end-2012 for more than 35 macroeconomic variables. We evaluate Kenyan growth, and also forecast the impact of economic management, including central bank policy, on profitability.

Kenya Economic Outlook Contents

The Kenya Business Forecast Report features explicit BMI economic forecasts for Kenya, with supporting commentary and analysis, for end-2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 set against Kenyan government views. Underpinning our Kenya forecasts are key assumptions for the global economy through end-2012, covering growth, inflation, employment, trade and investment, interest and exchange rates in the US, Japan and the Euro-zone.

Coverage of Key Economic Issues in Kenya

  • Economic Activity in Kenya
    Real GDP growth; industrial growth; employment growth; inflation and consumer prices; consumption (indicative wages, retail sales, consumer confidence)
  • Fiscal Policy in Kenya
    Current macroeconomic strategy and implementation policies; government finance (revenue, expenditure, budget balance); tax reforms
  • Monetary Policy in Kenya
    Interest rate trends (bank lending and deposit rates); inflation (retail price inflation, consumer price inflation); exchange rate policy in Kenya; Kenyan currency controls; influence of foreign direct investment inflows; exchange rates and foreign exchange reserves
  • Balance of Payments in Kenya
    Merchandise trade (exports, imports, trade balance); current account balance
  • Foreign Direct Investment in Kenya
    Foreign direct investment approvals and inflows; the foreign investment climate
  • Kenyan External Debt
    Debt profile (short- and long-term debt; public and private sector exposure)

Key Benefits

  1. Rely upon BMI's 100% independent Forecast Scenarios for Kenya and underlying assumptions - we take no advertising and are privately-owned.
  2. Exploit the benefits of BMI's comprehensive and reliable macroeconomic Kenya database, sourced and fully maintained by BMI from an extensive network of private sector, government and multilateral contacts.
  3. Gain key insights into the current and future direction of Kenyan government economic policy

Kenya's Business Environment:

How internationally competitive is Kenya's regulatory environment, and what changes can be expected?

BMI assesses levels of transparency, flexibility of labour market, tax burden, development of the banking sector and credit availability, infrastructure and IT, foreign investment regime and trade liberalisation in Kenya.

Kenya Business Environment Contents

  • Kenya's Business Environment Risk Rating with SWOT Analysis
    Short and long-term business environment risk ratings for Kenya, benchmarked against ratings for Africa and neighbouring countries.
  • Country Competitiveness for Kenya
    Competitiveness of Kenya's business operating environment in supporting corporate growth and profitability over the 5-year forecast horizon, compared with regional neighbours.

Coverage of Key Business Environment Issues in Kenya's Domestic Environment

Transparency, cronyism and corruption; labour market flexibility; corporate tax burden; interest rate levels; access of private sector to lines of credit; sophistication of banking sector and stock market; levels of business confidence; infrastructure and IT

  • Foreign Direct Investment in Kenya
    Analysis of foreign investment regime, foreign ownership laws; attractiveness of business environment to foreign investors; review of major foreign direct investments over the last 24 months, and of strategic sectors attracting most interest
  • Foreign Trade with Kenya
    Analysis of trading environment, government trade policy, liberalisation measures, tariffs and membership of trade areas

Kenya's Key Industry Sectors

Which industry sectors in Kenya will grow fastest, and where are the major investment opportunities in the Kenyan market?

BMI targets investment opportunities in Kenya's high growth industries, including automotives, food and drink, infrastructure, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, telecommunications and IT.

Coverage of Kenya's Key Industry Sectors - Kenyan Market Overview

Size, value and structure of industry; impact of liberalisation and privatisation on sector performance and prospects; friendliness of business environment

  • Latest Developments in Kenya
    Review of latest projects, deals, privatisations, mergers and acquisitions, and implications for sector performance; company rankings for national and multinational companies in Kenya; main industry players by local sales, employee size, market share and main brands, products and services
  • 5-year Industry Forecast for Kenya
    Historic dataset (2003-2007) and BMI forecasts through end-2012, covering headline industry data broken out by sub sector

Key Benefits

  1. Target strategic sector-by-sector opportunities in Kenya's high growth industries, attracting public expenditure and foreign investment; identify key players and competitors driving growth, investment and business opportunities.
  2. Benefit from competitive intelligence on top national and multinational companies operating in Kenya's major industry sectors, including analysis of recent trends in sales and market share, company strategies, product launches and latest deals.

Who buys the Africa Business Forecast Reports?

The Kenya Business Forecast Report is an essential tool for CEOs, Chairmen, Finance Directors/CFOs, Managing Directors, Marketing/Sales Directors with commercial interests in Kenya.

Our Business Forecast Reports are relied upon by corporates, banks, government departments and multinational organisations around the world.

Business Monitor International's Business Forecast Report subscribers include:

3M, Abbott Laboratories, Accenture, Access Bank Plc, ADNEC, American Express (Middle East) BSC, Arab Swiss Engineering Co ASEC Group, Astra Zeneca, Bahrain Petroleum Company, BNP Paribas, British American Tobacco SA (pty) Ltd, Crown Industries, Ernst & Young, GE International Inc, Gulf Holding Company, Hyder Consulting, Impact/BBDO, Intercontinental Bank Plc, Kellogg, Mobinil, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Samsung Engineering & Construction, Telkom Wholesale Services, Tesco Corporation, Tetra Pak Egypt Ltd, Visa International 

 

" The most useful section of BMI's report for my business is the Economic Outlook, which contains specific details of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to my business from within the country. This helps me, when planning for the future to reach the widest market and also gives me the edge in order to overtake my competitors. "
Chairman, Bavarian Auto Trading. BMW Egypt, Egypt.

BMI's Executive Summary for Kenya

[TOP]

Politics Unlikely To Impact Growth

The race for the Kenyan presidency is likely to become a tightly fought contest between the incumbent President Mwai Kibaki and main opposition leader Raila Odinga. Indeed, the latest surveys conducted at the beginning of October show that Odinga has, for the first time, overtaken Kibaki in the opinion polls. Despite Odinga's recent head start in the polls and his past triumph of being able to beat Kibaki (as experienced in the 2005 constitutional referendum), we believe that unseating Kibaki is likely to be a very difficult task. Irrespective of who wins the ballot, we do not expect a reversal of the reform progress experienced over the past few years. In fact, our outlook on the economy remains very positive, and we forecast real GDP growth to come in at 6.3% in 2007. Due to base effects, we believe that economic activity is likely to slow to 6.1% in 2008, yet is likely to remain robustly above 5.5% over our forecast period.

In our view, as witnessed in the 2002 elections and the 2005 referendum, a potential eruption of violence in the run-up and the aftermath of the elections is likely to represent the main downside risk to country's political stability in the immediate future. Given the expected tight race of the two main candidates and the increasing importance of ethnicity in the parties' campaign slogans, we believe that the risk of violent confrontations is higher in this year's election. Moreover, in the case of allegations of electoral fraud, a prolonged deadlock over the results would pose a risk to policy continuity and potentially spook foreign investors over the medium term.

With regards to the country's external accounts, we foresee a worsening of the current account deficit over 2007-2008, followed by a gradual improvement toward the end of the forecast period. We anticipate a deficit of 2.3% of GDP for 2007, which should slip down to 3.4% in 2008 - by this stage the deficit should be around US$1.2bn. As ever, the weather poses a significant risk to our outlook for Kenya's balance of payments. Indeed, the impact of recent floods is still to be determined and this poses a downside risk to our upbeat export outlook. On the import front, a key risk stems from oil prices - if prices remain at or surge above their elevated levels, the import bill will see a marked increase.

While in the World Bank's 'Doing Business 2008' report Kenya ranks number 72 overall and is the top performer in East and Central Africa, we see the country as rather less hospitable to business, and rank it at number 127 in our universe of 167 countries. Although we view Kenya's infrastructure relatively favourably, we mark the country down on its institutions and market orientation. Factored into the low scores in these areas are punitive corporate tax rates, endemic corruption and the difficulty of starting and closing a business. Furthermore, the country is relatively closed to FDI, scoring just 8.4 in that sub-component of our market orientation rating.

Read about our other Business Forecast Reports  

Asia

Australia, Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam

Europe

Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Caucasus, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Kazakhstan & Central Asia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, Ukraine

Middle East

Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon & Syria, Kuwait, Oman & Yemen, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE

Africa

Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Francophone West Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, North Africa, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe

North & South America

Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, East Caribbean, Mexico, Peru, Trinidad & Tobago, Venezuela, West Caribbean

 

Business Monitor International

Business Monitor International
A Market Leader in Country Risk, Industry Intelligence and Company Research

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BUSINESS MONITOR INTERNATIONAL's country risk analysis and forecasts, market research on leading industries, and multinational company research is relied upon by corporates, banks, government departments and multilateral organisations in over 125 countries around the world.

Country Risk Analysis and Forecasts
BMI
has for 25 years specialised in political risk analysis, financial markets analysis, and macroeconomic forecasts on 175 global markets.

Industry Intelligence and Market Research
BMI's industry research covers Automotives; Banking; Chemicals; Defence & Security; Food & Drink; Freight Transport; Information Technology; Infrastructure; Insurance; Mining; Oil & Gas; Petrochemicals; Pharmaceuticals & Healthcare; Power; Telecommunications, and Tourism.

Company Research
BMI maintains a fully-researched 55,000-site database of multinational company subsidiaries located across global markets.