India to lend Kenya $45 million for manufacturing sector
July 12, 2016, 5:31 am

Kenyan President hosts Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a State House banquet in Nairobi on 11 July 2016 [Image: President’s Office, Kenya]

On Monday at a news conference with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, Modi said India will lend Kenya $45 million to help develop a textile factory and other smaller industries.

“India is Kenya’s largest trading partner and the second largest investor here. Even with that, there is a potential to achieve much more,” Modi said.

Kenyatta said $30 million of the funds would be used to revive the Rift Valley Textiles Factory. India had evinced interest in reviving and expanding operations of the company in 2014.

India and Kenya on Monday signed seven pacts, including in the field of defence and security.

Modi and Kenyatta “agreed that terrorism and radicalisation are common challenges for our two countries, the region and the whole world. We have agreed to deepen our security partnership including in fields of cyber security, combating drugs and narcotics and human trafficking.”

The Kenyan military is battling the armed al-Shabab group, which is allied to al-Qaeda and is waging an insurgency against Somalia’s United Nations-backed government, carrying out deadly attacks on military and civilian targets in and outside Somalia.

Kenya is among five countries contributing troops to an African Union force that is bolstering Somalia’s government against al-Shabab’s insurgency.

Of the troop-contributing countries, Kenya has borne the brunt of retaliatory attacks from al-Shabab.

Al-Shabab killed up to 200 Kenyan soldiers in a January attack, according to Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud.

Indian Prime Minister Modi on Monday handed over 30 field ambulances to the Kenya Defence Forces.

“Youth can play an important role in building a counter narrative to extremist ideologies,” Modi said at the University of Nairobi.

India has suffered deadly terror attacks in the past decades, most prominent among them the coordinated attacks on 26 November 2008 when Islamist gunmen stormed luxury hotels, the main railway station, a Jewish centre and other sites in Mumbai, the country’s financial capital.

166 people were killed in the attacks which lasted for three days.

TBP and Agencies