Kenya to revive its Leather and Textile Sub-Sector.

9th July 2014 Another African country is catching our eye today on EL Reports and all for the right reasons. Ventures Africa shares that Kenya has decided to revive its leather and textiles sub-sector and has committed Sh3 billion, that’s about $34.1 million toward growing capacity within the industry.

This information was revealed by the Treasury Secretary, Henry Rotich. Mr Rotich went on to explain the government’s reasoning towards this course of action by pointing out that there is a high demand for leather in Kenya which local production cannot meet. Currently demand for leather in Kenya lies at about 28 million leather units; but the nation produces less than 4 million units of leather annually. As we can see guys, this is quite a big gap, filled by imported supplies.

Mr Rotich believes that Kenya is ideally positioned to produce quality leather and added that, “with the global leather demand now estimated at more than $60 Billion,” Kenya needs to step up to claim a good share of this very attractive pie.

To support this vision, the nation’s Industrialisation Secretary, Adan Mohamed has stated that his ministry is set to improve efficiency in manufacturing companies. He states that they will work to lower the cost of power, improve the quality of roads to make it easier to access markets and improve value addition of raw products. These actions will work together to bring down the cost of production.