TRADE AND MACROECONOMIC POLICIES AND THE INDUSTRIALIZATION EXPERIENCE IN KENYA IN THE 1970s AND 1980s

Kenya is a typical, small, non-oil country with an average GDP per capita of only $350 and an estimated population of 24 million (1990). The country has, however, received some attention in the Sub-Saharan Africa development literature because of its comparatively good macroeconomic performance which has been achieved within a relatively laissez-faire framework. The country, for example, experienced a faster average annual growth in GNP per capita and a lower rate of inflation than in Sub-Saharan Africa in general. However, it experienced a smaller expansion in merchandise trade in the 1960s and 1970s although it did not experience as drastic a collapse in merchandise exports and imports as Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in the 1980s.1