Shilling little changed ahead of budget reading

The shilling held steady against the dollar ahead of a budget reading by National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich in Parliament yesterday.

At opening of business, the shilling was trading at 97.05/15 to the dollar, barely changed from Wednesday’s close of 97.10/20. Mr Rotich was expected to announce fresh measures to shore up growth in East Africa’s biggest economy and boost revenue collection.

The International Monetary Fund last week trimmed Kenya’s growth outlook to 6.5 per cent from 6.9 per cent.

 “The market is flat ahead of the budget. People want to see the budget first before making the next move,” said a trader at one Nairobi-based commercial bank.

The shilling has been under pressure from the global strength of the dollar, a growing current account deficit and sliding foreign exchange earnings from tourism as visitors have stayed away due to a series of attacks by Somali Islamists.

“In respect to the yawning current account deficit, there is no better place to address that than the budget. We want to see if there are measures (in the budget) to address that,” added the trader.