Nairobi, April 28 -- Kenya is moving away from the long-standing practice of extracting and exporting raw minerals, adopting a new policy direction that prioritises local processing, value addition and the development of integrated industrial value chains.

President William Ruto said the shift is aimed at retaining more value within Africa's mineral sector, rather than exporting it in raw form.

"We will process our minerals here in the continent, we will refine them here, we will manufacture them here," he said while opening the '2026 Mining Investment Conference' in Nairobi. "The full length of the value chain must and will generate value for Africa."

Rich mineral base, limited local value capture

Kenya's mining sector has traditiona...