Kenya’s president is wooing American tech corporations, promising a business-friendly surroundings — despite the fact that he has raised taxes on companies at dwelling
ByEVELYNE MUSAMBI Related Press
September 15, 2023, 3:46 PM
Sitoyo Lopokoiyit, M-Pesa CEO, speaks throughout a U.S.- Kenya Enterprise Roadshow hosted by Prosper Africa, a U.S. Commerce and Funding Initiative, in San Francisco, Friday, Sept. 15, 2023. (AP Photograph/Jeff Chiu)
The Related Press
NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenya’s president is wooing American tech corporations, promising a business-friendly surroundings — despite the fact that he has raised taxes on companies at dwelling.
President William Ruto made the enchantment in an deal with to main U.S. know-how corporations and buyers on Friday in San Francisco, highlighting funding alternatives in his nation and lauding his authorities’s “strategic priorities.”
“For the sake of stability, we’ve a tax code that’s easy to implement, constant, honest and predictable” — one that will not change within the subsequent three years, he mentioned.
“We’ve eradicated value-added tax on exported companies and the tax on stock-based compensation for workers of startups, in addition to the home fairness requirement for ICT corporations,” he mentioned.
However critics say that his authorities’s newly imposed and likewise a number of proposed taxes will improve the price of doing enterprise in Kenya, together with within the tech sector.
His administration in its first finances this yr doubled the digital service tax to three%, concentrating on overseas tech giants that use the web to market and promote merchandise.
The federal government had projected it might rake in billions within the native foreign money, the Kenyan shilling, from the doubled digital companies tax, however critics warned it might discourage tech buyers.
Ruto insisted his nation was positioning itself as “Africa’s enterprise course of outsourcing and inventive economic system hub,” citing web penetration and a rising workforce.
Kenya has previously been accused of not tightening labor legal guidelines to forestall the exploitation of workers by tech corporations similar to Meta who had been sued by former workers over poor working circumstances and accused of paying low wages to content material moderators.