Kenya accelerates economic growth with construction, manufacturing and financial services sectors.
13th October, 2014
Kenya remains on track to accelerated economic growth with construction, manufacturing and financial services sectors fueling growth. Second quarter GDP figures indicated the economy grew by 5.8 percent in the three months through June compared to the slow 4.4% growth in the first quarter.
The performance is however much slower compared to the corresponding period in 2013 when the economy grew by 7.2%. According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, construction output rose by 18.9 percent during the second quarter from a year earlier, manufacturing grew 9.1 percent while financial and insurance services increased by 8.3 percent, the data showed. This offset slow growth in the tourism sector that slumped 18.6 percent during the three-month period. Poor rains have affected the agricultural sector with the slowing down by 5.5 percent. The released data comes weeks after the statistics body completed the rebasing exercise that moved Kenya into a lower middle-income economy by plac