FILE PHOTO | NMG
Kenya’s trade negotiation with US will strive to generate a pact that protects the local economy and safeguards regional integration, President Uhuru Kenyatta said last week amid calls for caution.
Kenya is yet to make public its negotiation objectives for the proposed free trade area (FTA) almost two months after the US published its intention to get unfettered access of its products and firms to key segments of the local economy.
We are trying to find a scenario that opens Kenya as a market for some of US products and one that enables Kenyans to take advantage of the huge market as well,” President Kenyatta told the Atlantic Council last week.
Experts and local business lobbies have urged caution after the US’s FTA negotiation objectives indicate that the world’s largest economy would be seeking duty-free access of its industrial and agricultural products.
Kenya, the President said, was a “trailblazer” in pursuing the FTA with the US market, adding that other AfCFTA members would soon have to enter such pacts after the lapse of Africa’s Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa).
