Standard Chartered (Photo / Business Daily)
The standard Chattered bank of Kenya is predicting a sluggish economic growth for the year 2018.The bank says that the economy will grow at a stagnant rate of 4.6 per cent largely attributed to weak private investment and capping of interest rates.The bank’s chief economist for Africa Razia Khan, says that the government must have to revise interest rate capping to enable the private sector grow translating to economic growth.“Kenya has lost a lot of its growth dynamism by an interest rates lone rate cap, an interest rate structure that doesn’t ultimately serve its economic need. Kenya is going to come under greater pressure to raise government revenue, it needs a thriving private sector to be able to do that,” said Ms Khan,“The interest rate cap will have to be reviewed.”“We can’t assume that a quick change is going to bring instant economic activity. For many frontier economies like Kenya, that time period, we may see a majority of the impact over at least a 12 month period,” added Ms Khan.
The Standard Chartered Bank has offered the lowest projection after Barclay's Bank predicted economic growth at 5.5% and government Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) predicted at 6.7%.