The International Trade Centre and Equity Group Holdings have signed a memorandum of understanding to build commercially viable trade ecosystems across East Africa, starting in Kenya with three sectors that punch below their weight: coffee, leather and the creative industries. The partnership pairs ITC’s global trade development expertise with Equity Group’s pan-African financial reach across Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, South Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania. It runs through a Kenya pilot until December 2026, with a broader East African rollout planned from 2027. Why These Three Sectors Each sector carries unrealised export potential that better financing, skills and…
Author: Muindi
Muindi
Experience working on communication and marketing departments and in the broadcast industry. Interested in sustainable development and international relations issues.
Fifteen years after Kenya shut its border with Somalia, it remains closed. President William Ruto says two forces stand in the way: a shortage of international funding and a deepening political fracture inside Somalia that no one has yet managed to close. Speaking in Wajir County after Madaraka Day celebrations on June 1, Ruto acknowledged that he had expected to move faster. “I really thought I would have opened those borders by now. But unfortunately, there is always a delicate balance between security and commerce,” he said. The Cost Kenya Has Absorbed Alone Kenya’s deployment of the Kenya Defence Forces…
Electric mobility company Spiro has secured US$215 million in equity financing to expand its battery swapping network, grow manufacturing capacity and deepen electric vehicle infrastructure across Africa. What the Capital Will Do The funds will accelerate deployment of battery swapping stations, widen Spiro’s industrial and assembly footprint, advance technology development and finance entry into new African markets. Spiro already operates in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Togo, Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon. The company now targets the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia as its next markets. This latest round builds on earlier debt financing secured in February: a US$7 million senior debt…
Kenya’s annual inflation rate climbed to 6.7% in May 2026, up from 5.6% in April, pushed by rising fuel costs, a collapse in vegetable supply, and persistent pressure on household essentials. The reading marks the highest rate since January 2024 and places inflation near the upper limit of the Central Bank of Kenya’s preferred band of 2.5% to 7.5%. The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics released the figures on Friday. Transport, food, and housing costs together account for 57% of the inflation basket’s weight and all three moved higher in May. The timing sharpens focus on the CBK’s next Monetary…
Absa Bank Kenya recorded its first decline in quarterly profit after tax since 2017, as falling interest rates squeezed revenue across both funded and non-funded income lines and a sharp, unexplained surge in staff costs added pressure to an already compressed margin environment. The bank posted a profit after tax of KSh 5.31 billion for the three months ended March 31, 2026, down 13.9% from KSh 6.17 billion in the same period a year earlier — a peak that now marks the high watermark before the current pullback. The result represents only the second revenue contraction in 20 years of…
Kenya’s Capital Markets Authority has upgraded three existing market intermediaries to full investment bank status, a move that brings the total number of licensed investment banks operating in the country to 22 and signals a deliberate push to deepen the market’s capacity for capital raising, advisory, and investor services. The regulator announced the approvals on Thursday, confirming that Cinemark Consult Ltd, Fintrust Securities Ltd, and AIB-AXYS Africa Ltd had each received upgraded permits. None of the three are new entrants. All operated previously under narrower intermediary licences, and their elevation reflects a broader regulatory priority: reducing the dominance of a…