President William Ruto has heaped praise on the tax measures undertaken by his government which he claimed have created the ease of conducting business for investors flooding into the market.
Speaking during his visit to the Silicon Valley in San Francisco on Friday where he met tech leaders of Microsoft, Intel, Google and Apple, the President emphasised Kenya's steps to eliminate Value Added Tax (VAT) on exported services and the tax on stock-based compensation for employees of start-ups and domestic equity requirement for ICT companies.
He termed the tax code in Kenya as simple to enforce, consistent, fair and predictable, further praising the country's business-friendly environment.
"We are committed to align our institutional framework for data protection with the global regime in the Global Cross-Border Privacy Rules framework," Ruto stated.
The head of state underscored the commitment to the re-engineering of Kenya’s Special Economic Zones (SEZ) and Export Processing Zones (EPZ), with the intention of making them the most competitive in Africa.
He added that the strategic mission is to accelerate the flows of foreign direct investments by removing the procedures and regulations whose purpose is to create unnecessary barriers to investors.
"We are further clarifying and rationalising the land regime to make access to land in the SEZ and EPZ expeditious.
"By the end of the year, we shall have reviewed the entire policy and institutional framework governing SEZ and EPZ to align them with our objective of mobilising a stronger FDI performance," he reiterated.
Additionally, Ruto said that Kenya is the gateway to the East African Community - with a regional market of 500 million, and a Pan-African market of 1.4 billion.
"If you build it in Kenya, it works for Africa and if you set up in Kenya, your African footprint is guaranteed. Our country is not only a thriving economy of the hardest workers you can find anywhere, it is also a scenic extravaganza of spectacular geography, and a thrilling theatre of rare wildlife in majestic action," he added.
The Kenya-Kwanza government has been reviewing tax measures in the country in a bid to collect more revenue - a move that has been hailed by foreign markets including the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Treasury Cabinet Secretary Njuguna Ndung'u has introduced plans to prevent the zero-rating of VAT on the supply of goods such as medicaments, agricultural pest control products, and animal feeds, cooking gas and maize flour.
The proposed reviews is essentially set to raise the cost of the commodities in the country.
