WASHINGTON, May 24 (Reuters) - The U.S. and Kenya will

hold a new round of trade talks next month, they said on Friday,

as the two countries tout new business deals and look to boost

economic ties.

Kenyan President William Ruto was in Washington for a State

visit as the White House pledged new partnerships on technology,

security and debt relief to the East African democracy.

"Investors like what they see in Kenya," Ruto said, courting

business leaders at an event, vowing to make it easier to do

business.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo urged business leaders

to maintain momentum after the week's events. We cannot go home,

feel excited for the weekend and move on," Raimondo said. "We're

all in on Africa, all in on Kenya. Let's go make more deals

together."

The U.S. Trade Representative's Office said the countries

will hold the sixth in-person negotiating round under the

Strategic Trade and Investment Partnership (STIP) in Mombasa

from June 3 to 7 after a round in Washington this month.

Ruto said he had addressed concerns by Alphabet's Google

to make it easier to operate and listed a number of

tax and other policies to encourage direct foreign investment.

Alphabet's president and chief investment officer Ruth

Porat said on Friday Google was boosting investment in Kenya,

including in a partnership to build the first-ever fiber optic

route to directly connect Africa with Australia, that passes

through the continent to South Africa before crossing the Indian

Ocean to Australia.

Ruto added Kenya had been working to attract big tech firms

and startups through its "Silicon Savannah" and added Kenya is

focused on production of e-mobility vehicles.

"The Kenyan government in the next policy framework we will

be eliminating all taxes for companies that will locally

manufacture the first 100,000 two-wheelers and four-wheelers in

Kenya," Ruto said.

The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation this

week announced a $10 million direct loan to BasiGo, an electric

vehicle company leasing and selling electric buses to Kenyan

public transport bus operators and a $10 million loan to Kenyan

company Roam Electric to support producing electric motorcycles

in Nairobi.

Among the deals signed on Friday include a Kenya and

Microsoft ( MSFT ) partnership to build a $1 billion 1-gigawatt

datacenter in Naivasha, Kenya that will run on Microsoft

Azure cloud services and offer access to cloud-based

applications.

The move will allow the Kenyan government to move its data

and services to trusted vendors, the White House said.

Microsoft ( MSFT ) President Brad Smith said under a partnership the

company will help bring internet services to 20 million people

next year in Kenya.