Kenya has raised its investment target by more than 80 percent, citing more aggressive campaigns to court investors to bring in capital to start and expand businesses in a bid to create opportunities for thousands of skilled workers struggling to find jobs.
Invest Kenya has set a Sh400 billion goal for foreign and local direct investment in the current financial year to June 2027, an 81 percent increase from the Sh221.4 billion attracted last year ended June 2026.
The target is contained in the State Department for Investment Promotion’s draft Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) report, which is currently undergoing public participation.
The target is Sh178.6 billion higher than the actual investment the State Department has quoted for last year, requiring Invest Kenya to attract nearly twice as much capital in a single year.
The higher ambition follows a record performance in the year 2025/26 ended June, when foreign and local direct investment surpassed Invest Kenya’s Sh130 billion target by Sh91.4 billion, or 70.3 percent.
Invest Kenya chief executive John Mwendwa attributed last year’s performance and the ambitious target this year to a sustained government push to attract and facilitate investors, including a new approach that follows businesses from the initial idea through to commercial operation.
‘It’s a result of a sustained push by government to really facilitate and attract investors through a number of interventions,’ Mr Mwendwa said in a July interview.
The value of direct investment by foreign and domestic firms has risen from Sh74.7 billion in 2022/23 to Sh106.7 billion in 2024/25, pointing to an acceleration in capital mobilised through the government’s investment promotion drive.
Invest Kenya is planning to sustain the momentum over the medium term, with targets rising to Sh450 billion in 2027/28, Sh500 billion in 2028/29 and Sh550 billion in 2029/30.
The plans to sustain that momentum, with investment targets rising to Sh450 billion in 2027/28, Sh500 billion in 2028/29 and Sh550 billion in 2029/30, place private capital at the centre of the government’s bid to expand productive capacity, support economic growth and create employment as public finances remain constrained.
The bigger investment push could provide new opportunities for the country’s large pool of skilled but unemployed and underemployed workers if the capital attracted translates into operating businesses and expanded production.
‘The deal pipeline is very huge, but conversion is where the rubber meets the road,’ Mr Mwendwa said.
The ambitious Sh400 billion target will, nevertheless, test whether the investment momentum can be sustained beyond major conferences and headline deals.
Invest Kenya’s performance data for last financial year points to bottlenecks in converting investor interest into bankable projects. Data from the Investment Promotion department show that the proportion of projects reaching the expression-of-interest or bankable-project stage stood at 18 percent in 2025/26, below the 25 percent target.
‘The target was not met due to inadequate staffing levels, hence the length of time taken in negotiating underlying expressions of interest,’ the Investment Promotion Department says.
The report indicates that State-facilitated projects in the year to June generated 40,087 new employment opportunities, more than two-and-a-half times the 15,000 target and up from 12,500 the previous year.
The surge in jobs coincided with the sharp increase in investment attracted, suggesting that labour-intensive projects can generate significant employment when they move beyond the investment-promotion stage into implementation.
‘Target was surpassed. This was because projects facilitated were labour-intensive and supported by the value of investments attracted during KIICO,’ the report explains.
Invest Kenya says it is also relying on President William Ruto’s international engagements to generate more investor interest, with Mr Mwendwa describing the head of State as Kenya’s ‘chief investment officer’.
The President’s involvement, he said, significantly expands the number of potential investors reached during overseas roadshows.
‘If we by our own merit could meet X number of investors if we went to do a roadshow, then you know what happens when you have the president? That number grows three- or fourfold,’ he said, citing the Kenya International Investment Conference (KIICO) 2026 as one of the clearest demonstrations of the government’s effort to convert investor interest into deals.
The conference in March generated 20 signed investment deals worth more than $2.9 billion (about Sh375 billion), covering sectors including agriculture, manufacturing, technology, healthcare, energy and real estate. The deals were projected to create more than 63,000 jobs.