Kenyan president orders crackdown on foreigners operating small businesses

Kenya's President William Ruto has ordered a crackdown on foreigners operating small-scale businesses, saying local traders and hawkers need to be protected.

His announcement comes amid growing debate about the increasing number of African migrants involved in Kenya's vast informal economy.

"From next week, all [foreign] traders doing those small businesses should close them," he said, also promising to fast-track proposed legislation to preclude foreigners from certain areas of trade.

Ruto said Kenya remained open to foreign investment, but argued that investors - including Chinese traders - should create jobs and expand production rather than compete with Kenyans in small businesses.

"It cannot be that a person comes from China or elsewhere to be a hawker or open a small shop," he said in an address to small-scale traders who had come to meet the president at State House in the capital, Nairobi, on Wednesday afternoon.

"We have made efforts to improve the economy, we have not improved investor confidence for hawkers to come to Kenya," said Ruto, who plans to seek a second term in election next year.

It is unclear how many foreign nationals are involved in small-scale trading or how many would be affected by the new crackdown.

Kenya hosts a large refugee population, some of whom live and work outside the country's refugee camps.