Doing business in East Africa

I have always wanted to be an entrepreneur. As I am now in college, knowing that i have but a few years to become a member of the working group I started thinking. I realized that most Tanzanian businessespeople/businesses concentrate only on our borders. So my question is to my Kenyan/Ugandan brothers/sisters is how do you convince me to come & do business in your country? Tanzanians how would you convince a Kenyan/Ugandan to come & invest in Tz? These day people are looking for money where it can be found & i would love to one day do business across our borders. I was reading about these young kenyan entrepreneurs some years back & as a kid they impressed me. I also read about the brothers who own Home boyz production in Kenya. So I said to myself let me asks members of the forum what they think about the business environments in their own countries and about doing business in or with other countries. Lets see how this debate goes & by the end of it lets see if some of our neighbors convince me to do business in their countries, especially Kenya. Mind you I'm asking a serious & open minded question so the sensitive ones don't feel like I'm trying to offend or poke fun at anyone. Also I hope the discussion will start some other talking points us we go along, this is just for starters.

[fionamati]

Kenya is indeed open for business. Just stand outside our Companies Registry in Nairobi, and that will be confirmed. The number of businesses being opened on a daily basis are rising.

However, also be cautious. The economic crisis has also cost a lot of jobs so purchasing power has dwindled. Also our tax system is not very enticing.

When contracting or even sub-contracting services, you also have to be on the lookout.

There's more info on business opportunities here