Nairobi, Sept. 14 -- Give President William Ruto credit where credit is due. Amongst many things he sometimes gets accused of, being lacking in ideas is not one of them. His economic rhetoric can sometimes seem overly ambitious or forward-looking, but it is unusually substantive on the topic of transforming Kenya from a consumer economy into an economy based on production, investment and exports.

Speaking at the AmCham Business Summit in Nairobi, the President once again made trade, investment, industrialization, value-addition and international partnerships the centerpiece of Kenya's economic discourse. Even the design of the Summit itself revolves around these issues, how to deepen two-way trade and investment flows between Kenya and t...