President Uhuru Kenyatta today held bilateral talks with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong where the two leaders agreed to boost trade and cooperation between Kenya and the Asian nation.
President Kenyatta, who is on a visit to attend the Singapore Summit 2019, said Kenya and Singapore have led the way in developing Afro-Asian relations.
The Singapore Summit, started in 2012, is one of the foremost events that brings together business and thought leaders from Asia and around the world to discuss global trends in business and geopolitics. President Kenyatta is the keynote speaker at the event.
He cited the recent hosting in Nairobi of the first Afro-Asian Fintech Festival which was co-sponsored by the Central Bank of Kenya and its Singaporean equivalent — the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
He noted that in June 2018, the Enterprise Singapore Overseas Office was launched in Nairobi to promote trade between the two countries.
President Kenyatta said Kenya looks at Singapore as a “role model for what can be achieved through conscientious planning, diligent execution of people-centric policies, and the unwavering commitment to eliminating graft and inefficiency.”
“Taking heed of the examples set by Singapore and other Nations that have emerged from low-income nation status, Kenya has embarked on a transformative agenda to turn our Country into a newly industrializing middle-income country by the year 2030, through implementation of the Kenya Vision 2030,” said the President.
The President said his Administration has picked four main areas from the Vision 2030 to increase its focus in the short-term.
He called on Singapore and other Asian countries to invest in Kenya’s Big Four Agenda areas of focus that include Affordable Housing, Food Security, Jobs Creation through the promotion of Manufacturing, and Universal Health Coverage.
“Exciting opportunities abound for Singaporean, Asian and other Business and Investment players in those four areas,” said the President.
President Kenyatta called for investments in Kenya’s plan to build new metropolitan areas and to expand existing ones in order to build 500,000 new housing units and their attendant supporting infrastructure by the year 2022.
