It's fun to stay at the (Af)CFTA : A qualitative study of the AfCFTA's impact on manufacturing SMEs in Kenya.

Abstract: In the recent couple of years, African countries have conducted a free tradeagreement which will affect the whole African continent. Providing the largestfree trade agreement in history so far in terms of participating countries.AfCFTA provides new conditions and enhancement, aiming for Africa tobecome one single market and boosting intra-African trade. Countries such asKenya, has during recent years made changes and reforms which has enhancedits business environment for companies operating there. In addition, this thesisaims to investigate how the new free trade agreement is affecting KenyanSMEs in the manufacturing sector today, and how it will affect them in thefuture when the free trade agreement is fully implemented. To receive a deeperunderstanding about the subject, a qualitative method and an abductiveapproach have been conducted. Moreover, the theoretical framework derivesfrom internationalization theories commonly used and which benefits from theterms that the free trade agreement holds. The conceptual framework assumesthat international marketers experience different market prerequisites, thus theview of the internationalization process differs from one market to another.Therefore, our empirical findings derive from a multi-case study, whichinvestigate Kenyan manufacturing SMEs possibilities and difficulties tointernationalize on the African continent. The analysis presents the theoreticalframework and the empirical findings in the contrast and relation to each other.Finally, the conclusion chapter provides insights in opportunities anddifficulties still remaining for the AfCFTA to be fully implemented and forKenyan manufacturing SMEs to fully utilize the agreement. Also, limitationsand suggestions for future research is conducted in the chapter. The result ofthis research stipulates that there are still difficulties for Kenyanmanufacturing SMEs to utilize the agreement and that the agreement requirestime to provide a fully functional single market for Africa.