Effect of Infrastructural Development on Kenya’s Manufacturing Exports to EAC Region

Abstract

Manufacturing industries have played a significant role in boosting economic wellbeing in the world through accelerating and maintaining greater productivity growth, boosting employment options for semi-skilled workers, and increasing country competitiveness through exports. Kenya, like many other developing nations, is working to build a strong manufacturing industry. Agriculture and services have been the primary drivers of growth in the country. Historically, the manufacturing sector's contribution to Kenya's economy has remained constant at 10% of GDP, and in 2021 it was around 8.4 percent. As a result, the country has seen an early deindustrialization, as evidenced by the manufacturing sector's contribution to GDP, which was just 8.4% in 2021 and 9.2% in 2016. Boosting manufacturing sector results remains a key priority for Kenya, as evidenced by the slew of planned interventions for the industry that have been created over the years. The government has established Vision 2030, the Kenya Industrial Transformation Programme (KITP), and, most recently, the Big 4 Agenda to modernize the industrial sector. The major goal of this research was to see how infrastructure development (ID) affected Kenya's manufactured exports to the East African Community (EAC). The specific goals were to determine the impact of infrastructure development on Kenya's manufacturing exports to the EAC region. Gravity model was used as the theoretical framework for the study, which is based on the theory of international trade and employs a correlation research design that is ideal for dynamic panel data models. Each country's data for the study variables was obtained from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Kenya Nation Bureau of Statistics, World Bank development and African Development Bank for six EAC members for the period 2007–2021. Unit root test, Im-Pesaran and Shin, Levin-Li-Chu tests were used in the study. The Im-Pesaran unit root test results at Levels indicated that all the variables except inflation had unit root at levels as indicated by the p-values>0.05, except inflation which had a p-value of 0.0006