Kenya’s President William Ruto plans to privatise up to 10 public companies in the next year on the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE), The Kenyan Wall Street newspaper said.

He urged the private sector to list at least five firms on the domestic bourse.

The government has previously planned the privatisation of 26 companies, including the Kenya Ports Authority and Kenya Pipeline.

The move aims to boost the NSE, which has not seen an IPO since October 2015. The last listing was of Stanlib Fahari REIT, while the last privatisation was of mobile network operator Safaricom in 2008.

The bourse currently has 63 listed companies, the newspaper said.

(Editing by Seban Scaria seban.scaria@lseg.com)