General Electric to invest billions in Kenya .
Posted On Thursday, June 07, 2007 at at Thursday, June 07, 2007 by UnknownGeneral Electric — the world’s second largest company — is planning to announce the creation of what could be the region’s biggest company in one massive investment.
This follows an act daring in the first quarter of this year by a committee set up to investigate possible areas of investment in Africa. A few months ago the committee approved the setting up in Kenya of GE’s largest and most capital-intensive venture in the continent, marking a turning point in the company’s investment policies.
Through expansion, GE says that it expects its businesses to achieve over ten per cent earnings growth most years, and is projecting long-term returns at 20 per cent. It is the search for these aggressive earnings figures that has brought GE knocking at Kenya’s door with a proposal that will shock foreign direct investment statistics noticeably in the next three years.
If the Kenyan deal goes through, it will rank as the single-biggest investment by a multinational in East and Central Africa. It will also provide thousands of job opportunities and boost Government tax revenue by an estimated Sh10 billion annually.