Last Updated 5 months ago by Kenya Engineer

This is a special day in many important ways for different stakeholders. To the Devki Group, we are here to make another milestone in their ambitious expansion of their industrial footprint in Kenya. To the people of West Pokot, this is a moment to witness the enormous resource potential of this county, and its economic benefits to the local community and the nation. To the people of Kenya at large, we take a monumental step in our industrialisation journey by aligning investment and productivity with our quest for self-reliance in respect of strategic goods.

The role of the Devki Group in this journey is commendable. Two of their investments, National Cement and Cemtech, produce 6 million tons of clinker annually, which is equivalent to the national demand. The opening of this plant takes our clinker production beyond this demand, to 11 million tonnes annually, an excess of 5 million tonnes. The group’s achievement is admirable; over the past 5 years, it has invested over KShs 100 billion into steel and cement manufacturing, considerably improving Kenya’s self-sufficiency in these crucial products. Additionally, it now employs 11,000 Kenyans directly, and nearly 50,000 indirectly.

West Pokot County is about to experience an economic resurgence through incomes from various sources, associated with the factory, including wages, consumption and increased revenue.

At a national level, the economic benefits of Devki Group’s investment are critical and substantial. Local manufacturing of clinker and steel has saved the country foreign exchange at the rate of USD 500 million every year and remits over KShs 2 billion every month, or KShs 24 billion annually in the form of taxes, electric power bills and other outgoings associated with the business.

The Devki Group eloquently illustrates the power of investment to promote self-sufficiency and export production, create employment opportunities, increase economic activity, utilise local resources and generate attractive returns for investors. It also demonstrates the vision behind the bottom-up economic transformation agenda by outlining the roles of investment, manufacturing and industrialisation in enhancing our country’s self-sufficiency and export performance.

It is important that as we create incentives to promote more of such investments, our local investors in the manufacturing sector promote competitiveness by embracing the most efficient technologies. This is because incentives are an investment that must be repaid in higher productivity, greater efficiency, higher competitiveness and a strong export performance. This is the path by which we shall achieve our ambition to grow the manufacturing sector to 20% of our GDP by 2030. Devki Group have shown us that this target is attainable.

In view of the implications of local manufacturing capacity in terms of jobs, productivity, forex savings and revenue, it is not reasonable to provide duty and levy exemptions to importers of goods that can be produced locally.

Instead, we shall focus our policies and strategies on encouraging increased local production, in line with BETA, to facilitate more investors to emulate Devki Group.

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