Press Release

OPEC Fund and Kenya sign investment promotion and protection agreement

101/2005 September 15, 2005, Vienna, Austria
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An agreement for the promotion and protection of investment has been signed between the OPEC Fund for International Development and the Republic of Kenya. Drawn up within the framework of the Fund's Private Sector Facility, the agreement was signed by H.E. Mr. Julius Kiplagat Kandie, Ambassador of the Republic of Kenya to Austria, and by Mr. Suleiman J. Al-Herbish, Director-General of the OPEC Fund.

The Fund's Private Sector Facility is a financing window, endowed with its own resources, through which the Fund channels support directly to the private sector in developing countries. Its objectives are to promote economic development by encouraging the growth of productive private enterprise and supporting the growth of local capital markets. Under the Facility, loans are made to financial institutions for on-lending to small, medium and micro-enterprises, as well as directly to specific projects. Equity participation in private enterprises is also undertaken. The investment protection agreement accords the OPEC Fund the same privileges as those normally given to international development institutions in which the country holds membership. To date, the Fund has concluded such agreements with over 60 countries

Populated by approximately 32 million people, Kenya’s gross national income (GNI) reached US$12.8 billion in 2003, and GNI per capita amounted to US$200 that same year. After experiencing a number of economic difficulties in the 1990s, Government has been creating new strategies for economic and social development, and has demonstrated its commitment by shifting expenditures towards programs benefiting the poor, particularly in the education sector. Kenya considers privatization as an integral part of the reforms needed to spur economic recovery, and is in the process of developing a private sector development program, which will include the establishment of a competitive environment for attracting increased private sector investment in productive sectors such as tourism, industry and trade.