KEPSA CEO Ms. Carole Kariuki, on 15^th February 2022 held a meeting with Mr. Omar Khan – Director, International Offices, Dubai Chamber on the sidelines of the Dubai EXPO 2020. The two met to discuss and agree on areas of cooperation between KEPSA and the Dubai Chamber.

KEPSA hosts the International Chamber of Commerce Kenya (ICC Kenya) and therefore part of its membership and partners, is the Chamber of commerce. Foreign chambers with branches or offices in Kenya become KEPSA members and those who do not, become KEPSA partners. Some of the active foreign chambers of commerce within KEPSA include AMCHAM, BCCK, French Chamber, Chinese chamber Kenya, etc.

The Dubai chamber of commerce has an office in Kenya headed by Mr. Michael Gathu who also joined the meeting virtually. KEPSA and the Dubai chamber of commerce agreed to collaborate on the following areas, with more to be added in due course;

• The first area of cooperation under the KEPSA Business Hub will be to set up a similar program called ‘Referral for Businesses’ similar to the Dubai chamber one; this will be a chargeable service. The focus will be on investment through referral-listed and vetted businesses to ensure the business we connect, meets the criteria of integrity. This will be for large and medium companies.
• There will be a focus on SMEs through the ‘Dubai Global connect’ by the Dubai Chamber and KEPSA SME club: Focusing on fashion, food and furniture. KEPSA will start with the fashion and furniture sectors. This will be similar to what KEPSA is doing with the KEPSA-CCA program where a program with the first cohort of 25 SMEs is set to be launched in March 2022.
• Meet businesses scouting for business, in each other’s countries and help them understand the country’s business environment much better. For business forums, conduct B2B meetings before events, so by the time the main forums happen, the businesses have engaged or have an idea about who will be in the forum.
• Business environment information sharing. Under the knowledge center, KEPSA will partner with the Dubai chamber to share information that improves each other’s country’s business environment to attract more investments. Some of what Dubai has done on the digital space to access business services is called “Dubai Now“ and has all the e-govt sites and apps hosted under one platform.  e.g ICP UAE – for all personal documents; passport, ID, driving license. SMART employee –  That monitors staff leaves, attendance in office, salaries in organizations and between organizations and sectors, government and business. This reduces corruption and improves competitiveness.

Dubai Chamber of Commerce is in the process of changing its name to ‘Dubai Chambers’ and will focus on:

• Dubai chamber: Business environment.
• Dubai chamber for digital: Taking care of new innovations and compliment existing ones. 
• Dubai international: For attraction of multinationals that are not in the country or countries not represented and internationalization to support Dubai business in other countries ready to go international
• Expo Business Guest Program Think Tank: To help with investments, visas, bank accounts as an accelerator program for investors coming to Dubai.
• Start-ups Hub: Programs to assist start-ups.