Abstract
Once the envy of Africa for its thriving economy, Kenya has experienced serious difficulties in recent years. Balance-of-payments pressures have become severe as agricultural growth has fallen, foreign capital inflows have declined and domestic macro-economic management has proved unable to respond efficiently to changed conditions. Underlying these problems has been a serious failure in industrial policy. Despite much rhetorical emphasis on industrial restructuring to achieve export gains (prompted by World Bank Structural Adjustment loans and IMF lending agreements), Kenya’s manufacturing sector has remained caught in the import-substitution pattern of the past. Industrial expansion has not been achieved.
The research on which this chapter is based has been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Special thanks are due to David Gachuki for his help in Nairobi. Research assistance has been provided by Benedict Mongula and Colin Jacobs.
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Notes
Industrial Survey and Promotion Centre, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, ‘Sector Study — Kenya’s Textile Industry’ (Nairobi: February 1978) p. 3.
N. Swainson, The Development of Corporate Capitalism in Kenya, 1918–1972 (London: Heinemann, 1980) p. 27.
R. Elgin, ‘The Oligopolisitic Structure and Competitive Characteristics of Direct Foreign Investment in Kenya’s Manufacturing Sector’, in R. Kaplinsky (ed.) Readings on the Multinational Corporation in Kenya (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1978) pp. 111–12.
W. Mutunga, ‘Kenya: Contract Law and Society — A study of Rivatex’s Investment and Management Agreements’, Paper presented at the Workshop on Investment and Management Agreements, University of Warwick, UK, 1979 pp. 10–12.
See S. W. Langdon, ‘The Multinational Corporation in the Kenyan Political Economy’, in Kaplinsky, Readings; also R. Kaplinsky, ‘Capitalist Accumulation in the Periphery — the Kenyan Case Re-examined’, Review of African Political Economy, vol. 16 (1980).
A review of relevant economic data from Kenya is presented in S. W. Langdon, ‘Industry and Capitalism in Kenya: Contributions to a Debate’, paper presented to the Conference on the African Bourgeoisie: The Development of Capitalism in Nigeria, Kenya and the Ivory Coast, Dakar, Senegal, December 1980.
See P. Streeten, ‘The Multinational Enterprise and the Theory of Development Policy’, World Development, 1973;
such externalities in Kenyan industry as a whole are discussed in S.W. Langdon, Multinational Corporations in the Political Economy of Kenya (London: Macmillan, 1981) Chapter 5.
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© 1986 John Ravenhill
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Langdon, S. (1986). Industrial Dependence and Export Manufacturing in Kenya. In: Ravenhill, J. (eds) Africa in Economic Crisis. Macmillan International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18371-5_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18371-5_8
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