Trade diplomacy key to unlocking regional growth

President Uhuru Kenyatta when he signed the agreement that established African Continental Free Trade in 2018. [File, Standard]

Despite having the fastest growing population in the world, more than 95 per cent of world trade takes place outside Africa. Doing business here is very costly and African exports to global markets face challenges that are yet to be addressed. Just recently, the UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab went to Thailand to meet with the ten nations of the ASEAN trading bloc in an effort to establish good trading relationships outside of Europe, ahead of Brexit.

We need to be thinking in the same way - not to avoid trade with Europe, of course, but to really consider how trade relations will make or break Kenya’s prosperity.