Tullow Oil PLC announced that it has agreed to transfer 21.57 % of its 33.33 % interests in Uganda to Total for $900 million. I think that will be seen as a sharp piece of business by Aidan Heavey. StanBic Kenya issued their 2017 Economic Outlook this morning and pronounced
‘’In 2017, the GDP is expected to expand by only 5.4 % instead of the forecasted 5.8 %”. Bloomberg carried a report by Felix Njini dated January 9, 2017 headlined ‘’Kenyan Central Bank said to warn traders over shilling decline. ’’
Executives from some of the country’s biggest lenders were summoned to meetings with policy makers last week, the people said, asking not to be identified because they aren’t authorized to speak about the issue.
Others were telephoned individually and warned against making comments the regulator says are fueling the shilling’s decline, they said.
Central Bank officials blame speculators for the slide in the currency of East Africa’s largest economy, and told bankers to let the shilling be guided by market fundamentals, the people said.
The Central Bank’s stance is that the more people comment on the currency’s movements, the steeper its decline, they said
Kenya’s shilling has weakened every trading day since December 23, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
‘’The Kenya shilling closed out the week trading around the 103.70 level and that makes a -1.17 per cent slide versus the dollar since the start of the year. That slide created a flurry of media demand for comment and it never ceases to amaze me how relatively small moves in the shilling create such an outsize hullabaloo.
So the shilling has fallen -1.17 per cent versus the dollar since the start of 2017 and -2.167 per cent since November 8. I cite November 8, because that was when Donald J. Trump was elected US president and his election was the starting pistol for a sharp ‘’Trump’’ rally’ Matina Stevis, the Africa correspondent for the Wall Street Journal tweeted