About

The development of the Kenya Leather Park is guided by Kenya’s Vision 2030, the country’s economic development blueprint, that aims to transform Kenya into a newly industrialized, “middle-income country providing a high-quality life to all its citizens by the year 2030” The objective of the Economic Pillar of Vision 2030 is to create a robust, diversified and competitive manufacturing sector in three ways: 1) boosting local production, 2) expanding to the regional market and 3) taking advantage of global market niches.

To boost local production in leather, the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Cooperatives, through its implementing agencies, the Export Processing Zones Authority (EPZA) and the Kenya Leather Development Council (KLDC), is developing Kenya’s first Leather Park at Kinanie, Machakos County. The Kenya Leather Park (KLP) set on a 500-acre site will encourage value addition and innovation towards unlocking economic potential of the Leather sector in Kenya.

The Kenya Leather Park aims to create an enabling environment for the attraction and facilitation of increased Foreign and Domestic Direct Investments into Kenya. 90% of Kenya’s USD 94 million leather exports are unfinished wet blue leather. Further processing of finished leather and leather goods will create and additional 35,000 jobs and USD 150-250 million in GDP and contribute to substituting a portion of USD 86 million in shoe imports yearly. This will create a leather cluster of 5-6 leather footwear manufacturers, 8-10 leather tanneries and additional supporting industries

Project Overview

Set-up a 500 acre leather cluster with a host of services to promote the sector including:

• 5-6 leather footwear manufacturers
• 8-10 leather tanneries
• 3-4 packaging and logistics company
• A small and medium enterprise (SME) park
• Training centre for increased value addition
• Low-costs of labour and electricity
• EPZ benefits on taxation and trade
• Integrated amenities – residential complex, schools, health facilities, recreation centre

Focus

Leather footwear producers aiming, to take advantage of Kenya’s favourable cost structure and strategic position, to serve global, regional and domestic markets. Strategic location

• Located next to Nairobi, with access to key labour markets and local partnerships.
• Ease and cost of transportation (air and road) critical for re-exporting.
• The existing 339-hectare site hosts over 40 industries.

Why Athi River EPZ?

• Standard of living high given proximity to Nairobi (30 KM away)
• Close to existing leather industries e.g. tanneries, slaughterhouses
• 450 KM from Port of Mombasa
• Connected to Mombasa by a major highway and new Standard Gauge Railway
• Convenient infrastructure
• Onsite training

World class Infrastructure

• Plug & play location
• High environmental standards in line with EU regulation
• Shared production facilities – laser cutting machines and computer aided design machines

Taxes (in case of export production)

• 10 year corporate tax holiday
• 10 year withholding tax holiday
• Exempted from stamp duty
• Inputs exempted from import and export duties
• Exempted from VAT