Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) has held its second Economic Forum. In this year’s forum, CBA focused on taxation and how it is impacting business in the manufacturing sector.
This year’s event was attended by Cabinet Secretary for Trade and Investment, Adan Mohamed, who was also the keynote speaker. He asserted that the government remains open to dialogue with the private sector, with a view to creating a more enabling environment for business to thrive.
He said during interactions with the private sector, none has called for lower taxes, but instead what business leaders want are better policies to boost competitiveness of Kenyan products in the global market, and a business environment that will reduce the cost of doing business.
Mr. Mohamed further said that there is now a shift to ensure that Kenya is able to manufacture more, so as to take over from South East Asian countries that have been doing most of the global manufacturing.
On the part of the private sector, Ms. Florah Mutahi, the Chairperson of the Kenya Association of Manufacturers said that the government needs to streamline the taxation regime further so as to give local and multinational companies more incentives to manufacture locally.
Jeremy Ngunze, the Chief Executive of CBA Kenya, Peter Biwott, the Chief Executive of the Export Promotion Council and Frederick Omondi, a Tax Partner at Deloitte Kenya also spoke at the event, attended by key business leaders and CBA customers from the entire country.