Foreign direct investment in Kenya: Centum behind 9% of total FDI in Kenya for 2015

Fred Murimi, Director of Centum Capital talks about the foreign direct investment in Kenya.

What challenges do you face?

Our challenge is not in capital. There is a lot of capital. There are many investors looking to bring their money into this region. The sectors we are in are all growing and there are many opportunities so that is not a challenge either. Our challenges are in how quickly we can execute our ideas into bankable investment opportunities that will attract significant amounts of capital. In the last 7 years, we have been able to create significant investments and we have grown our own assets from about 70 million dollars in 2009 to about 500 million dollars this year. It is a challenge that we have been able to address. The challenge will always continue but we see that as an opportunity to grow in the different sectors that we are in. To execute our projects quickly, it boils down to people. It depends on getting high calibre people and bringing them into a high performance organization and ensuring that we are supporting them to deliver on each of their different opportunities.

As I was saying, we have been fortunate in being able to attract significant foreign investment into this country. Last financial year, we were able to bring in approximately 122 million dollars into the country in direct foreign investment and that was about 9% of Kenya’s direct foreign investment. It is a significant sum for one company. This money came from South Africa, London and China. We are looking to increase our reach into potential investors for the different projects we have available. So far we have done well and we will continue to be a significant player in attracting large amounts of capital into the country.