Tourists at Travellers Beach Hotel in Mombasa, Kenya. The number of
tourist arrivals dropped to 89,782 in August from 105,241 in July 2017.
PHOTO FILE | NATION
Cement consumption in Kenya hit a 30-month low in August
underlining the economic slowdown in the run-up to the general election
and subsequent extended electioneering.
The country
consumed 419,886 tonnes of cement, 25.7 per cent lower than the
consumption in the month of July and a level last seen in February 2015.
According
to recently released National Bureau of Statistics economic figures,
exports dropped to a two-year low of Ksh41.6 billion ($416 million),
capturing the heavy economic cost to the economy caused by turbulent
electioneering.
The number of tourist arrivals dropped
to 89,782 in August from 105,241 in July; mobile money transactions
also dropped, while new car registrations dropped to 5,162 in August
from 6,828 a month earlier.
Political jitters among
investors forced the government to lower its growth projections to 5.1
per cent from the previous 5.7 per cent. This is however in contrast
with projections of independent analysts, who have predicted growth of
below five per cent.
Economists at Stanbic Bank and
Citi Research have downgraded Kenya’s growth projection to below five
per cent with Stanbic giving 4.8 per cent, down from 5.8 per cent.
Stanbic
attributed the downgrade to a slowdown in public investment in
infrastructure development and a drop in private sector activity for the
fourth straight month in August.
The Central Bank of
Kenya has maintained growth will be above five per cent on the grounds
that the amounts spent on the general election and the repeat
presidential election served as economic stimulus packages with most of
the cash paid out as wages for contracted officers and service
providers.
“How we are still growing at a respectable
rate even as we have headwinds coming our way is because of medium and
small enterprises which seem to be the ones that have been quite
dynamic,” said CBK governor Patrick Njoroge.
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