In the top 20 markets with the greatest potential for future trade growth, Cote d’Ivoire came on top followed by India. Kenya on the other hand was ranked third out of 66 economies showing best potential in future trade growth.
The list of the top 20 economies was dominated by countries in Africa and Asia.
“Kenya’s trade readiness score is particularly high, due to infrastructure and ease of doing business improvements that far surpass most other African nations in our index. The administration has been successful in attracting external investment for substantial infrastructure development, including renewable energy projects. Improvements in Kenya’s ease of doing business ranking over the last few years have been driven by governmental reforms, including in the areas of starting a business, access to electricity, registering property and protecting minority investors,” said Standard Chartered Kenya CEO, Kariuki Ngari.
The Trade20 Index determines each market’s trade growth potential by analysing changes within the last decade across a wide range of variables, grouped into three equally-weighted pillars: economic dynamism, trade readiness and export diversity.
“Côte d’Ivoire and Kenya are leading the pack and Ghana also performs well. The particularly strong trade readiness exhibited by Côte d’Ivoire and Kenya is driven by improvements to their business environments, with enhanced digital and physical infrastructure, and moves to improve their ease of doing business,” said Stanchart in the report.
“Although these are smaller economies that cannot be expected to match the overall trading potential of larger trading powers, our index shows that they are progressing quickly, albeit from a low starting point.”
Kenya benefited from improving business climate generally. Some of the more visible changes in Kenya have been in road and railway development, which has made it easier to move goods both within the country and to trading partners in the region.
