IMF now predicts sluggish economic growth for Kenya

Armando Morales

Kenya’s economic growth rate will slow in 2017, from about six per cent last year, due to sluggish credit growth and as investors take a wait-and-see attitude before a presidential election in August, a senior IMF official has said.

Armando Morales, the International Monetary Fund’s representative in Kenya, said growth is likely to remain within the 5-6 per cent range of the past five years, despite the slowdown. “We expect a deceleration of growth for several reasons, but I think the most important reason we are considering is the potential impact of the interest rate cap on credit growth,” he told Reuters in an interview.