As the Chair­per­son of Hon­da Motor­cy­cle Kenya Ltd and the Motor­cy­cle Assem­blers Asso­ci­a­tion of Kenya (MAAK), I have wit­nessed first­hand how strate­gic sup­port for key indus­tries can trans­form a nation’s eco­nom­ic land­scape. Last week, as we cel­e­brat­ed a decade of Honda’s oper­a­tion in Kenya and the launch of a new hori­zon with boun­ti­ful ini­tia­tives, we reflect­ed on the poten­tial with­in our local indus­tries to inno­v­a­tive­ly address eco­nom­ic challenges.

And use­ful lessons abound from all around the world. The Unit­ed States, for instance, has long demon­strat­ed the effec­tive­ness of tar­get­ed indus­tri­al sup­port. In the state of South Car­oli­na, incen­tives to BMW have dra­mat­i­cal­ly boost­ed the local econ­o­my through job cre­ation and invest­ment. Texas has fos­tered growth in tech­nol­o­gy by pro­vid­ing tax incen­tives and infra­struc­ture sup­port to tech com­pa­nies. In Flori­da, Tal­la­has­see Leon Coun­ty has sup­port­ed its health­care and biotech­nol­o­gy sec­tors with tar­get­ed pro­grams that have enhanced med­ical research and health­care ser­vices. These efforts have been mir­rored in the field of advanced man­u­fac­tur­ing and logis­tics, where strate­gic sup­port has led to improved effi­cien­cies in pro­duc­tion process­es and prod­uct movement.

Kenya too can tap into her sig­nif­i­cant poten­tial, espe­cial­ly in the auto­mo­tive sec­tor, which includes motor­cy­cle man­u­fac­tur­ing as this is the low­est hang­ing fruit. Hon­da Kenya alone employs about 100 team mem­bers direct­ly and has pro­duced over 130,000 motor­cy­cles, gen­er­at­ing sub­stan­tial employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties. This sup­ports approx­i­mate­ly 913,745 Kenyans direct­ly and indi­rect­ly, under­scor­ing the pro­found impact each job has with­in the com­mu­ni­ty. In terms of finan­cial con­tri­bu­tion, Hon­da has infused Kshs 3,608,822,532 into the Kenyan econ­o­my through taxes.

As a key par­tic­i­pant in the motor­cy­cle assem­bly indus­try, our exten­sive net­work includes 74 deal­ers across Kenya, sup­port­ing over 3,000 liveli­hoods. How­ev­er, the poten­tial for such sub­stan­tial eco­nom­ic impact is fre­quent­ly under­mined by restric­tive gov­ern­ment poli­cies. Many local enter­pris­es find them­selves in direct com­pe­ti­tion with gov­ern­ment action that should oth­er­wise be sup­port­ive. For instance, delays in gov­ern­ment pay­ments to sup­pli­ers or pref­er­en­tial treat­ment towards cer­tain mar­ket play­ers at the expense of com­peti­tors, dis­torts the mar­ket and frus­trates growth. Kenya stands to gain sig­nif­i­cant­ly by emu­lat­ing the suc­cess­ful mod­els in the U.S., where busi­ness­es thrive due to strate­gic eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment incentives.

In the motor­cy­cle sec­tor, com­pa­nies that man­u­fac­ture inter­nal com­bus­tion engines here in Kenya, are the same ones excelling glob­al­ly in elec­tric bike pro­duc­tion. The sup­port­ive strate­gies applied to these large cor­po­ra­tions should, there­fore, be extend­ed to small and medi­um enter­pris­es, which are the back­bone of our econ­o­my. This broad­er sup­port would enhance eco­nom­ic resilience and inclu­siv­i­ty, ben­e­fit­ing the entire country.

Fur­ther, with the impacts of cli­mate change now more glar­ing than before, envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty must remain at the core of gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy and busi­ness oper­a­tions. The intro­duc­tion of “Plant Your Age Ini­tia­tive,” which has led to the plant­i­ng of over 130,000 trees ( one tree per bike pro­duced), is only one exam­ple of how busi­ness­es can lever­age on inno­v­a­tive ideas to reduce their eco­log­i­cal foot­print on the plan­et and pro­mote sus­tain­abil­i­ty as an inte­gral part of their busi­ness ethos in the long term.

In the case of the Unit­ed States, the effec­tive­ness of all such ini­tia­tives such as the intro­duc­tion of elec­tric vehi­cles is often gauged through spe­cif­ic met­rics such as job cre­ation, invest­ment lev­els, and wage bench­marks. This too, could be sim­i­lar­ly applied in Kenya to mea­sure the suc­cess of eco­nom­ic objec­tives. By set­ting mea­sur­able goals and align­ing incen­tives with key eco­nom­ic sec­tors, Kenya can stim­u­late job cre­ation, encour­age sig­nif­i­cant domes­tic and for­eign invest­ments, and ensure that the eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits are wide­ly felt across the economy.

Ulti­mate­ly, Kenya’s future eco­nom­ic strat­e­gy must pri­or­i­tize sus­tain­abil­i­ty and inclu­sive growth. The auto­mo­tive indus­try, with its vast poten­tial for inno­va­tion and job cre­ation, is undoubt­ed­ly well-posi­tioned to dri­ve this change. Sup­port­ing indus­tries ready to inno­vate and expand respon­si­bly can ensure that our eco­nom­ic recov­ery and growth are both robust and sus­tain­able. We can indeed trans­form our eco­nom­ic chal­lenges into tan­gi­ble oppor­tu­ni­ties that ben­e­fit all Kenyans. Think green, act green.