Factors Influencing Investment in the Mining Sector in Kenya: A Case Study of Base Titanium in Kwale, County

The economy of a country is measured by the Gross Domestic Product which is basically the Market value of the final goods produced by the economy during a given period. Investment involves commitment of funds to long term assets that would yield benefits in future. The process of exchanging capital for an asset that is expected to produce earnings at a later time is also called investment. It increases an economys capacity to produce, it is therefore a factor that contributes to economic growth. Countries with a higher per capita GDP (the GDP divided by the population) have high standards of living and vice versa. The overall objective of this research is to investigate the factors that influence investment in the mining sector in Kenya. This is because mining in Kenya contributes about 1 % (one percent) to the countrys GDP despite the potential in the sector. Statistics show that the mining sector production in Kenya is way below its potential. The real potential predicted by analysts should be close to 10 % (ten percent) of the GDP. The research largely dwells on the factors for production that is land, labor, capital and entrepreneurship and how they impact on investment in the mining sector in Kenya. It also assesses the countrys risks that influence investment in the mining sector. The research design will be descriptive design that will demonstrate relationships and associations between the variables, which will be used to make some conclusions, linkages and recommendations. The target population will be investors in sub sectors in the mining sector in the country. The researcher used Base Titanium Ltd employee register, maintained by the organizations Human Resource and administration division to come up with a sampling frame containing a total of 164 members. The study used stratified random sampling with a sample of 49. The data collected was processed and analyzed using SPSS version 20.0. The findings were presented using frequency tables and percentages. Based on the findings of this study, the following conclusions were drawn. The results reveal that labour related issues, capital investment decision and countrys risk have significant and positive effects on investment in mining, while land tenure administration and entrepreneurship have insignificant effects on investment in mining in Kenya. These findings indicate that the existing land tenure administration and entrepreneurship capabilities are not suitable for investment in mining in Kenya.