Kenya’s exports earnings for goods sold to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) suffered their sharpest decline in years in 2025, knocking the Gulf nation from its position as Kenya’s leading export destination outside the East African Community (EAC).
This came in the year Kenya signed a trade deal aimed at deepening access to the UAE.
Data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) shows exports to the Gulf nation fell by Sh23.57 billion to Sh77.77 billion in 2025 from a record Sh101.34 billion the previous year.
The 23.26 percent drop saw the UAE lose its ranking as Kenya’s top export market outside the EAC to the United States, whose imports from Kenya declined at a slower pace of 10.33 percent to Sh79.68 billion from Sh88.86 billion in 2024.
KNBS attributed the sharp decline in exports to the UAE to ‘reduced domestic exports and re-exports particularly in kerosene-type jet fuel and tea’.
The jet fuel re-export classification occurs when foreign-registered airlines such as UAE’s Emirates, flyDubai, and Etihad refuel at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) in Nairobi or Moi International Airport in Mombasa.
Jet fuel sold locally to foreign airlines is statistically recorded by Kenya Revenue Authority as a re-export to the airline’s home country because Kenya imports much of its aviation fuel from Gulf suppliers such as Oman and other Middle Eastern markets.
This means fluctuations in flight activity, fuel demand and global oil trade can influence Kenya’s export figures to the UAE even without locally produced petroleum products.
Overall, the Gulf nation slipped to third place among Kenya’s export destinations after Uganda and the US.
Uganda retained its position as Kenya’s biggest export market, with export earnings rising to Sh162.26 billion in 2025 from Sh125.94 billion a year earlier.
The reversal marked the steepest annual drop in Kenya-UAE trade in more than a decade, wiping out part of the gains made in 2024 when exports had surged by 81.2 percent.
The decline came in a year Kenya signed a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with the UAE in a bid to ease market access for Kenyan goods, including livestock and meat products.
The agreement is part of a broader push by President William Ruto’s administration to position the Gulf region as a key destination for Kenyan exports and investments.
The UAE has been one of President Ruto’s most frequently visited destinations since taking office in September 2022, with State House officials saying the trips were aimed at unlocking trade and investment opportunities.
Investments, Trade and Industry Cabinet Secretary Lee Kinyanjui said in February that discussions with Gulf partners had revealed vast untapped export opportunities for Kenya, especially in livestock and meat products.
‘The discussions we have had with counties in the Gulf region like the UAE offer us a huge opportunity for export of meat and meat products. We are not able to even get to 10 percent,’ Mr Kinyanjui said on Fixing the Nation show on February 4.
He said Kenya needed to scale up both livestock numbers and quality to compete effectively in Gulf markets.
‘The conversation we should be having in some of these areas that are pastoral in nature is how to double our livestock population, and also quality,’ he said.
However, Kenya faces major domestic supply constraints that complicate ambitions to expand meat exports. The country’s annual red meat demand is estimated at about 800,000 metric tons against production of roughly 607,000 metric tons, highlighting supply deficits even before factoring in export needs.
President Ruto has previously linked reforms in the livestock sector to Kenya’s export ambitions in the Gulf market.
His administration’s controversial push for a national livestock vaccination programme in December 2024 was partly framed as a strategy to help Kenyan meat products meet international standards and unlock higher-value export markets such as the UAE.
‘We are determined to carry out the vaccination programme for our livestock in an effort to increase prices for our livestock products and meet international market standards,’ Dr Ruto said at the time while defending the programme against critics.
The sharp fall suggests that the record export earnings from the UAE posted in 2024 was boosted by unusually strong fuel trade flows which was not sustained last year.
The data exposes Kenya’s dependence on a narrow range of export products, leaving earnings vulnerable to fluctuations in commodity markets and global fuel demand.
Despite the decline, the UAE remains one of Kenya’s most important export markets in the Gulf region.
Exports to the UAE have expanded more than 30-fold over the past two decades, rising from Sh2.39 billion in 2004 to Sh77.77 billion last year.
Mr Kinyanjui has warned that failure to capitalise on negotiated trade agreements such as the Kenya-UAE CEPA would undermine efforts to create jobs and expand exports.
‘For the longest if you told any Kenyan to increase production, they will be asking where the market is. But now that we have answered that question, we need a huge leap in terms of increasing our productivity because it takes money to negotiate these agreements,’ he said.
‘So if you negotiate them [trade pacts] and they remain as documents gathering dust in government offices, that will be a sad day for Kenya especially with volumes of unemployment and poverty levels.’