20110126
xinhua

NAIROBI, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- The World Bank is to help Kenya increase its investments, innovation and identify new opportunities in information technology and tourism sectors that the bank said the country enjoys a competitive edge in the African continent, the bank announced on Tuesday.

"Kenya has a unique range of tourism and has the potential to put together its tourism products in a way its competitors cannot do," he said World Bank country director Johannes Zutt.

The World Bank will act as a go-between the government and the private sector to work closely under what is known as Competitive Partnerships Initiative (CPI) aimed at helping Kenya achieve an economic growth rate of 10 percent. "The aim is to catalyze growth in these two sectors and then move on to the other sectors," said head of Public Service Reforms at the Office of the Prime Minister Emmanuel Lubembe.

"For instance, we are expecting 1.2 million visitors this year, but what can we do as the government and the private sector to receive 5 million visitors?"

The intention is to identify what prevents achievement of exponential growth in each of the sector and then for the government to quickly rectify that through policy and other necessary changes.

The plus for Kenya is that it already has a vibrant private sector and a willing to deal with the bottlenecks faced by the business community said the World Bank's Senior Investment Promotion Specialist Wim Douw. "In Kenya, there is a very clear Vision 2030 and that's where it all starts. Another thing is the clarity of the objectives and that is, understanding from the beginning what it is we are trying to achieve," he said.

The World Bank earlier launched report titled "Kenya's Tourism: Polishing the Jewel" that identifies weaknesses that prevent innovation in the tourism sector and suggests ways that Kenya can attract tourists all year round and ensure that tourism money benefits the local communities.

Kenya Tourism Minister Najib Balala said what the country needs are new ideas on investments in the tourism sector to give the industry a new face. "We need investors to come up and open up new areas and develop new products for tourists," he said.

He said Kenya is not offering investors enough incentives like other competing countries are doing. "We need to offer them free land and tax holidays of up to 10 years," he said.

Another challenge is that of licensing. There are 44 different laws regulating tourism and hotels are required to have licenses from 31 different government administrative bodies, including local authorities.

Under the same initiative, the World Bank gave Kenya revolving loans of 4 million U. S. dollars that will be used to set up information telecommunication centers across all constituencies in the country by the private sector.

The aim of the project is to increase computer literacy in the country, increase the pace of doing business through efficient communication and enable government to offer some of its services through these centers. The projects is being implements by the Kenya ICT Board, a government appointed body and the privately owned Family Bank.