{"id":36827,"date":"2013-03-13T14:35:21","date_gmt":"2013-03-13T18:35:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/countingpips.com\/forex-news\/?p=36827"},"modified":"2013-03-13T14:35:21","modified_gmt":"2013-03-13T18:35:21","slug":"kenya-holds-rate-to-let-cuts-work-election-aids-confidence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/2013\/03\/13\/kenya-holds-rate-to-let-cuts-work-election-aids-confidence\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenya holds rate to let cuts work, election aids confidence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By <a href=\"http:\/\/www.centralbanknews.info\/\"><u>www.CentralBankNews.info<\/u><\/a> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Kenya&#8217;s central bank held its Central Bank Rate steady at 9.50 percent to give last year&#8217;s rate cuts time to stimulate the economy and said there were still risks to the economic outlook and price stability.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), which cut rates by 700 basis points in 2012 starting in July, said inflation had stabilized within the government&#8217;s 5 percent target range, the exchange rate was stable and the peaceful election should further enhance confidence and optimism about 2013.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Kenya&#8217;s inflation rose by 0.7 percent in the month to February, pushed up by higher prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages, to an annual rate of 4.45 percent from January&#8217;s 3.67 percent.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; Inflation that excludes food and fuel, and thus measures the impact of monetary policy, declined from to 4.46 percent from 4.51 percent, the CBK said.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; &#8220;The predicted favourable weather conditions coupled with non-inflationary credit growth are expected to offset the impact of rising international oil prices, and hence support a low and stable short-term outlook for inflation,&#8221; the bank said.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; Kenya&#8217;s&nbsp;&nbsp;Gross Domestic Product grew by 2.2 percent in the third quarter from the second for annual growth of 4.7 percent, up from 3.3 percent in the second quarter.<br \/><a name='more'><\/a>&nbsp; &nbsp; Kenya&#8217;s economy is bouncing back from the central bank&#8217;s aggressive rate hike campaign from 2011 to mid-2012 to combat inflation. Private sector credit growth maintained its upward trend with annual growth in private sector credit up by 11.95 percent in January from December&#8217;s rate of 10.42 percent.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;The central bank&#8217;s market perceptions survey from last month showed that the private sector expects inflation and the exchange rate to remain stable in the rest of this year and &#8220;sustained optimism for a strong growth recovery in 2013 on account of the prevailing macroeconomic stability and enhanced confidence in the economy following a peaceful election,&#8221; the CBK said.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; Despite the positive developments, the central bank said the risks to the outlook stem from the renewed upward drift in international oil prices and a weak outlook for the global economy with the expectation of a more pronounced recession in the euro zone and a slow recovery in the United States.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; &#8220;This outlook, coupled with the persistent balance of payments pressure due to the high current account deficit remain a threat to the general stability of prices,&#8221; the bank said.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp;<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.centralbanknews.info\/\">www.CentralBankNews.info<\/a><\/p>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;color: #333333;font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14px;margin: 0px;padding: 0px;text-align: left\">\n<div style=\"line-height: 1.5em;margin-bottom: 20px;padding: 0px\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span id=\"articleText\" style=\"background-color: white;font-family: arial, helvetica, sans\"><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By www.CentralBankNews.info &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Kenya&#8217;s central bank held its Central Bank Rate steady at 9.50 percent to give last year&#8217;s rate cuts time to stimulate the economy and said there were still risks to the economic outlook and price stability.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), which cut rates by 700 basis points in 2012 &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/2013\/03\/13\/kenya-holds-rate-to-let-cuts-work-election-aids-confidence\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Kenya holds rate to let cuts work, election aids confidence&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36827\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}