--- On *Mon, 3/23/09, Reuters_News@reuters.com <Reuters_News@reuters.com>*wrote: From: Reuters_News@reuters.com <Reuters_News@reuters.com> Subject: Reuters.com - Kenya sees $5-$10 bln ICT investments by 2010 [image: Reuters] <http://www.reuters.com/> Kenya sees $5-$10 bln ICT investments by 2010<http://www.reuters.com/article/email/idAFLN25512420090323> Mon Mar 23 13:19:15 UTC 2009 * Kenya sees foreign ICT investment booming * Says multinationals interested in back-office operations By Duncan Miriri NAIROBI, March 23 (Reuters) - Kenya expects $5-$10 billion of foreign investment from communication technology firms by next year, a senior government official said on Monday. East Africa's biggest economy is set to link up with the rest of the world via broadband from June through three undersea telecoms cables. "I would comfortably estimate that next year, even with a very poor economy, we will probably see between $5-$10 billion coming," Bitange Ndemo, permanent secretary at the ministry of information and communication, told Reuters in an interview. He said international firms that had expressed interest in investing included Google <GOOG.O>, Accenture <ACN.N> and General Electric <GE.N>. "We are seeing huge interest by multinational companies who want (to) take advantage of these connections and the availability of many youths who are educated to create back offices in this country," he said. Kenya's government is fronting one fibre-optic cable worth $110 million that will link it with the United Arab Emirates. The chief executive of SEACOM, a $700 million private equity venture, said on Monday that sales of bandwidth capacity were going well ahead of its cable's completion in June. [ID:nLN478381] Analysts say enhanced telecoms infrastructure has the same growth potential as mobile telephony, which has grown exponentially in the world's poorest continent in recent years. (Editing by Daniel Wallis; editing by Simon Jessop) This service is not intended to encourage spam. The details provided by your colleague have been used for the sole purpose of facilitating this email communication and have not been retained by Thomson Reuters. Your personal details have not been added to any database or mailing list. If you would like to receive news articles delivered to your email address, please subscribe at www.reuters.com/newsmails © Copyright Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved. Users may download and print extracts of content from this website for their own personal and non-commercial use only. Republication or redistribution of Thomson Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters and its logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of the Thomson Reuters group of companies around the world. Quotes and other data are provided for your personal information only, and are not intended for trading purposes. Thomson Reuters and its data providers shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the quotes or other data, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.