Kenya’s Manufacturing Sector Can Power Africa’s Next Export Success Story

Africa accounts for less than two per cent of global manufacturing value added, despite being home to seventeen per cent of the world’s population, this is according to the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) fact sheet on Africa published in 2023.  That gap is not simply a statistic.

It is a lost opportunity measured in jobs not created, value not added, and export revenues that have gone elsewhere for decades. That said, recent data shows that the conditions for a genuine industrial shift are now in place, and Kenya is better positioned than most to lead it.

The African Continental Free Trade Area, which creates a single market across 54 countries encompassing 1.3 billion people and a combined GDP of $3.4 trillion according to the Initiative for African Trade and Prosperity is projected to increase intra-African trade by 52 per cent over the next two decades. For manufacturers already operating in Kenya, this is not a distant projection.

It is an opening that is available right now to those ready to move.

The countries that position themselves early with the right facilities, workforce, and policy environment will shape Africa’s industry for a generation.

Kenya has been preparing. The country exported its first goods under the AfCFTA in October 2022, locally made car batteries and tea shipped to Ghana, and has since set a strategic goal of achieving five per cent real value-added growth in its manufacturing sector annually.

That commitment is already visible in some quarters. It is a vote of confidence in Kenya’s industrial future, and it is the kind of signal that shortens due diligence conversations for every investor that comes after.

Investor confidence is contagious. So is investor hesitation. The presence of established, well-run facilities already exporting at scale makes the case for the next wave of investment in ways that policy documents and investment forums simply cannot.

Kenya’s manufacturing sector contributed KSh 1.25 trillion to the economy in 2025, representing 7.1 per cent of GDP according to the Economic Survey 2026 released by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS).

That figure has room to grow significantly. Between 2011 and 2024, manufacturing’s share of Kenya’s GDP declined from 11.8 per cent to 7.3 per cent, a sharp deviation from Vision 2030’s target of 15 per cent by 2022.

Closing that gap is not simply an economic ambition. It is a jobs imperative. Kenya’s population is young, growing, and entering the workforce faster than the current economy is creating opportunities for them.

Manufacturing, real, export-oriented, value-adding manufacturing, is one of the few sectors capable of absorbing that labour at the scale and pace required.

Reversing the trend requires the kind of deliberate, sustained private sector investment that creates the conditions for others to follow.

It also requires a clear public-private partnership framework that gives manufacturers the certainty they need to plan over the long term, on energy costs, on regulatory stability, on infrastructure, and on skills.

These are not new conversations. But they need to move from conversation to commitment, with measurable timelines and genuine accountability on both sides.

The skills piece is often underestimated. Export-led manufacturing does not just create jobs. It creates a particular kind of job, skilled, technical, and increasingly well-paid, that builds human capital across entire communities.

Facilities that invest in workforce development, as Mars Wrigley has done at Athi River, are not simply filling today’s vacancies. They are building the industrial talent base that Kenya’s economy will need for the next decades.

Kenya’s proactive approach to AfCFTA implementation positions it as a leader in regional trade integration. But leadership requires more than policy positioning. It requires factories that are running, products that are moving, and investment that is committed rather than contemplated.

Despite Kenya being among AfCFTA’s earliest adopters, logistics bottlenecks and high trade costs continue to erode the competitiveness of its exports. These are solvable problems, but they require government and industry to solve them together, with the same urgency that the AfCFTA opportunity demands.

Africa’s manufacturing race has already begun, and the countries that move fastest will define the continent’s industrial future. Kenya has many of the advantages required to lead: modern infrastructure, proven investor confidence, export-ready industrial parks, and a strategic gateway to regional and global markets.

The foundations are in place. The opportunity is real. What happens next will determine whether Kenya participates in Africa’s industrial transformation or helps define it.

The writer Victoria Macharia, is the Corporate Affairs Manager, Sub-Saharan Africa at Mars Wrigley