Iran president comes to Kenya for business

• Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits Kenya this week to meet President Kibaki. There might be raised eyebrows, but it’s all about trade,

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday will follow Turkey’s Abdullah Gul in a double-succession of top Middle Eastern visitors to Kenya that look more commercially minded than anything else.

The Iranians are not making any secret of the fact that they consider Kenya to be the gateway to the cement trade and the hub of political links with the Eastern Africa region.

There has been a flurry of reciprocal visits between top Kenyan officials and their Iranian counterparts beginning in August last year when the Kenyan Government hosted what has come to be known as the Joint Kenya-Iran Commission for Cooperation, the fifth in the series.

“It is a sensitive time in relations between our two countries. We want to escalate the level of relations,” said the Iranian ambassador, Dr Seyyed Ali Sharifi, in an interview with the Sunday Nation.

About three weeks ago, an Iranian special envoy, Dr Jalil Beshaarati, was in Nairobi for talks with President Kibaki that centred on the growing economic ties with the Persian Gulf state.

Power plant

And last month Finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta (then the Trade minister) led a 40-member delegation to Tehran where he sought the assistance of the Iranian Government and private companies in expanding Kenya’s energy and infrastructure sectors.

Farab, an Iranian company, is behind construction work on a hydro-electric power plant along the Thika-Sagana road and a gas power plant near Mombasa.

Another Iranian firm, Icon, has won the tender for the construction of the Homa Bay-Kendu road.

President Ahmadinejad, who will be paying his first official visit to Kenya, will be accompanied by a huge delegation of officials and private businessmen estimated at more than 100 people.

The invitation to the Iranian leader was extended personally by President Kibaki when the two held bilateral talks on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York last September.

Iran is one of leading importers of Kenyan tea.

During Mr Kenyatta’s visit to Tehran last month, his hosts informed him that they were planning to expand the volume of trade with Kenya to $500 million (Sh38.5 billion) by the end of 2010.

Industrial oils

The present value of Kenyan exports to Iran stands at $55 million (Sh4.2 billion), according to the latest figures.