The World Bank has trimmed Kenya’s growth forecast for this year and 2016 to 5.4% from the previous estimate of 6%.
The bank says that Kenya, east Africa’s biggest economy, was facing hardships from currency volatility and tighter monetary policies.
The World Bank also forecast that the economy would expand by 5.75 in 2016 and not 6.6% as forecasted earlier.
“These estimates take into account more recent data on exchange rate, inflation, fiscal consolidation and balance of payments pressures,” the bank said in a report.
Kenya’s shilling has lost 14% against the dollar this year and interest rates have climbed by 300 basis points.
The World Bank said that Kenya’s public debt, which went up 0.05% to 44.5% of gross national production in 2014/2015, remained sustainable.
It said that Kenya remains on course to be one of Africa’s fastest growing economies despite a slight slowdown in economic expansion.
