Nairobi, May 5 -- There is a moment every manufacturer in Kenya knows well. It comes late at night, when the factory premises is still, and you are alone with your numbers: forget the sales figures, but the full, honest picture: payroll, licences, levies, compliance fees.

Kenya targets manufacturing at 20 percent of GDP by 2030, yet it stands at 7.3 percent today, down from over 11 percent a decade ago. Behind this decline are scaled-down factories, paused investments and unrealised expansion. Despite various initiatives to streamline the regulatory environment in Kenya, the issues persist and constrain industry growth.

To run a manufacturing business in Kenya today is to be perpetually compliant - not in a simple, once-a-year sense, bu...