Kenya ranked fourth most attractive in Africa for investments

By Newsroom On May 12, 2016

By Steve Umidha

Kenya has been ranked fourth behind South Africa, Morocco and Egypt in the Africa Attractiveness Index report by Ernst & Young (E&Y), thanks to robust infrastructural developments and sound business atmosphere.

The report released Wednesday also attributed the positive ranking to the year-on-year increase in FDI project numbers in the country in which 84 projects in diverse sectors were initiated in 2015.

The growth in shopping malls, commercial office developments and the railway project are the country’s biggest areas with large construction works going on.

E&Y report mirrors that of financial consultancy Deloitte which in its Africa Construction Trends report 2015 said that there were some 61 infrastructure projects in the region worth Sh5.9trillion, an amount nearly equivalent to the size of Kenya’s gross domestic product (GDP).
Despite the macroeconomic challenges, EY ranked South Africa the region’s most industrialized and second largest economy, as the most attractive investment destination in the continent outperforming most other African economies due to relatively high scores across every other dimension partly a reflection of the fact that the South African economy is more developed than any other African economy, the report noted.
The auditing and advisory firm also predicted a tough few years ahead for the continent.
“From an investment perspective, the next few years may be challenging – this is not because the opportunities are no longer there, but rather because these opportunities are likely to be more uneven than they have been,” said Sugan Palanee, Africa Markets Leader at EY.
The EY Africa Attractiveness Index (AAI) tool provides a balanced set of shorter and longer term-focused metrics and it is used to measure both likely resilience in the face of current macroeconomic pressures, as well as progress being made in critical areas of longer-term development, namely governance, diversification, infrastructure, business enablement and human development.