The Central Bank of Kenya has said it will hold its Monetary Policy Committee will hold the next lending rate setting meeting on January 26.
On its last meeting in November, the committee held the benchmark lending rate at 7.0%, citing “anchored” price increases and an economy that has so far benefited from an accommodative stance.
It was the 11th time in a row that rates were held.
According to the committee, year-on-year inflation fell to 6.5% in October from 6.9% a month earlier, as the government’s efforts to stabilize retail fuel prices began to bear fruit.
After a prolonged lockdown in the previous period to curtail the spread of the Coronavirus, economic growth rebounded strongly in the second quarter of this year.
A dovish stance has been maintained by policymakers since May 2020, when the East African nation reported its first case of COVID-19.
“Leading economic indicators showed continued robust performance,” the committee said, adding that the banking sector remained stable and resilient.
According to Razia Khan, chief economist for Africa and Middle East at Standard Chartered Bank in London, the emergence of a new variant of the Coronavirus is likely to undermine the prospects for a recovery in Kenya’s tourism sector and economy as a whole.