Country Commercial Guides are prepared annually at U.S. Embassies through the combined efforts of several U.S. government agencies. Kenya enjoys an extensive, if deteriorating, infrastructure, a generally well-educated population and a strong entrepreneurial tradition. Mombasa is the best and most important deep-water port in the region, despite deteriorating equipment and problems with inefficiency and corruption. Kenya's financial and manufacturing industries, while still small, are the most sophisticated in East Africa. Agriculture is the largest employer in Kenya and the country exports tea, coffee, cut flowers and vegetables.
Tourism is the country's second leading foreign exchange earner.
Some 672,000 tourists visited the country in 1998. Coffee has been relegated from first to third place because of a slump in production resulting, initially, from low world prices, and currently from mismanagement of local marketing. Kenya got on the road to economic and political reform in 1992, in response to internal pressure for change as well as initiatives by the World Bank, IMF, and other multilateral and bilateral donors. In that year, Kenya introduced multiparty democracy, which began a still on-going process of political reform and economic liberalization. In the mid-1990's the Government of Kenya undertook economic reforms after a serious drop in economic growth.