Kenya: why oil prices have provided little support for shilling

Lower oil prices should have reduced Kenya’s wide trade deficit and taken some of the pressure off the struggling Kenyan shilling, but the currency was Sub-Saharan Africa’s worst-performing last month. This seems to be because of the poor performance of key export earning sectors, which has kept Kenya’s current account deficit wide. We expect that the currency will continue to weaken, breaching 100/US$ over the coming months.