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President William Ruto announced Wednesday that Kenya had concluded a trade agreement with China, capping months of negotiations that began with a preliminary pact in January and are now set to deliver duty-free access to the Chinese market for the vast majority of Kenyan goods starting May 1.
Ruto made the announcement at an investment conference in Nairobi without disclosing the full terms of the finalized accord. The agreement takes formal shape through a Framework Agreement on Economic Partnership for Shared Development that Ruto and Chinese President Xi Jinping signed in April 2025, under which Kenyan products will access the Chinese market at zero tariff from May 1, 2026. The preliminary version of the deal, announced by Kenya’s trade ministry in January, had already committed China to granting duty-free entry to 98.2 percent of Kenyan export goods.
The finalization of the Kenya-China trade deal arrives at a moment of unusually high diplomatic traffic between the two countries. Chinese Vice President Han Zheng was in Nairobi on Monday to attend a High-Level Kenya-China Business Forum alongside Deputy President Kithure Kindiki, where the two sides underscored their intent to push trade volumes higher and reduce a bilateral imbalance that has long favored Beijing.
Kenya’s exports to China currently stand at approximately $210 million annually, against imports from China of $4.32 billion, producing a trade deficit of around $4 billion, or roughly 500 billion Kenyan shillings. Closing that gap is the central economic argument the Kenyan government has made for deepening ties with its largest bilateral trading partner.
Deputy President Kindiki used the business forum to press Chinese counterparts directly on agricultural imports, pointing out that Kenya is the largest avocado producer in Africa and the continent’s second-largest macadamia producer.
“Kenya has the best coffee in the world, the best tea in the world,” he told the gathering, calling on Chinese buyers to increase purchases of coffee, tea, avocados, nuts, fish, and fish products.
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Following the forum, Kindiki and Han jointly flagged off the first consignment of Kenyan exports bound for China under the zero-tariff arrangement at the Nairobi Railway Terminus. The initial shipment comprised 54 containers carrying avocados, avocado oil, hides and skins, coffee beans, dry grains, pet pellets, and recycling materials.
The trade agreement is the most tangible economic output of a broader diplomatic realignment that Nairobi has been pursuing with Beijing over the past two years. During Ruto’s state visit to Beijing last year, he and Xi presided over the signing of more than 20 agreements and memoranda of understanding spanning road infrastructure, agriculture, health, education, and information technology. The two countries elevated their bilateral relationship to a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in the New Era.” Infrastructure commitments included agreement to extend Kenya’s Standard Gauge Railway from Naivasha toward the Malaba border crossing with Uganda, and to expand and dual the Nairobi-Nakuru-Mau Summit-Malaba highway.
China is also Kenya’s largest bilateral creditor beyond trade flows. Both countries have moved to convert portions of Chinese loan repayments from dollars into yuan in an effort to reduce financing costs. The deepening financial relationship has attracted scrutiny from some American officials, who have questioned Kenya’s growing economic reliance on Beijing at a time of intensifying U.S.-China strategic competition.
Ruto has publicly defended the rapprochement, arguing that Kenya must increase its export volumes to China in order to narrow the trade gap rather than retreat from engagement. “When I sat with President Xi, we had a very candid conversation. I told him that Kenya is importing Sh600 billion worth of products from China, but is only sending about 5 per cent of our exports there,” he said.
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The January preliminary arrangement, described by officials as an Early Harvest Arrangement, was designed to deliver immediate market access benefits to Kenyan exporters while the two sides worked toward the comprehensive agreement that Ruto confirmed this week. Previous Kenyan efforts to shift the bilateral trade balance have yielded limited results. An arrangement reached in 2022 to allow Kenyan avocado exports into China failed to produce a meaningful reduction in the overall deficit.
Kindiki said the zero-tariff framework represented a structural opportunity that Kenya’s private sector had a responsibility to exploit. “We are looking forward to maximising the zero-tariff opportunity to increase Kenya’s exports to China,” he said, challenging businesses to capitalize on access to a consumer market of more than 1.4 billion people.
Ruto did not specify at Wednesday’s conference what additional terms, if any, were incorporated into the finalized agreement beyond the duty-free access framework established in January. His office had not released the full text of the accord as of Wednesday evening. The zero-tariff provisions are scheduled to take effect on May 1.
