Kenya and Nigeria have, over the last few years, signed several agreements of cooperation, the expectation is that Nigeria’s President Buhari’s visit to the East African country will create momentum for implementing this deals. The Nigerian president’s three-day visit is to pay tribute to the fallen heroes killed by Al-Shabaab militants in Somalia, he and President Uhuru Kenyatta will also attend bilateral talks and co-host th Business Forum in Nairobi. “I think the agreements that were signed, several articles of cooperation between Kenya and Nigeria during President Johnathan’s time in Nigeria were really to enhance the trade between the African countries and currently Kenya exports about 24 million dollars to Nigeria and imports about 6 million, so I expect that number to increase,” said James Obimbo, Corporate Finance Analyst at Genghis Capital.

Obimbo believes this will also allow for the diversification of both countries in terms of the trade for commodities and also with immigration. “They really need to come to an agreement of making trade a lot easier, loosening the trade barriers for example so that makes it easier to export even more and both countries can really diversify their export markets,” said Obimbo. Obimbo also agreed that Kenya needs to cut down on the long process one has to go through to start a business in order to encourage more entrepreneurship in the country. “It really [needs to] cut down the long bureaucracy currently, where sometimes businesses would like to set up but they have to go to this office physically.

Source: Bourse Africa

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