Afran : Kenya fiscal stimulus may still be needed: World Bank
on 2010/1/23 12:07:30
Afran

20100121

NAIROBI (Reuters) - There are signs the global economy is rebounding but Kenya should keep assessing its economic performance before reducing or removing its fiscal stimulus, the World Bank's country director said on Thursday.

Kenya put in about 1 percent of its gross domestic product as fiscal stimulus in its 2009/10 budget after suffering the triple shocks of post-election violence, drought and global economic slowdown.

"In terms of reducing and removing the fiscal stimulus altogether it may actually be premature, although there are signs that the global economy is recovering, but we are not in a full fledged recovery yet," Johannes Zutt told Reuters.

"There is still a possibility that we are going to see a further dip. It's just going to be a question of the government monitoring macroeconomic indicators, and particularly inflation levels, to see what action is appropriate going forward."

Zutt said the World Bank felt the fiscal stimulus was appropriate because the government's macroeconomic performance between 2002 and 2007, particularly its reduction of Kenya's debt burden, had created enough space for the fiscal stimulus.

The debt to GDP ratio fell to 40 percent in 2008 from 60 percent in 2000, Zutt said.

Inflation in east Africa's biggest economy also plummeted into single digits in the third quarter after the government started using a geometric mean to calculate inflation from an arithmetic mean previously.

The World Bank estimates that Kenya's economy grew by 2.5 percent in 2009 from 1.7 percent the previous year and forecasts expansion of 3.5 percent this year.

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