Central Bank to set rates on January 20th

The Kenyan central bank’s Monetary Policy Committee will hold a ratesetting meeting on Jan. 20 , it said on Wednesday.

The committee has held rates since July, having raised them sharply that month and in June after the shilling weakened and inflation crept up.

Kenya‘s economy grew 5.8 percent in the third quarter of 2015, driven by construction and agriculture and helped by a more gradual decline in tourism compared to 2014, the statistics office said on Wednesday.

Economic growth for the same period in 2014 was 5.2 percent.

Inflation rose to 8.01 percent year-on-year in December, from 7.32 percent the previous month, the statistics office said.

The government has repeatedly lowered its growth forecast in recent months from an original prediction of 7 percent. Earlier in December, Kenya‘s finance minister trimmed the 2015 economic growth forecast to a range of 5.5 to 6 percent.

In November, the government lowered the forecast to 5.8 to 6.0 percent, citing tighter monetary policy and heavy rains.

“During the quarter, most of the macroeconomic indicators remained relatively stable,” the statistics office said in a statement.

The tourism sector, an important source of foreign exchange, has been undermined in recent years by Islamist militant attacks that have kept tourists away from Kenya‘s game parks and Indian Ocean beach resorts.

Prospects have improved since Britain, the source of more than half the nation’s tourists, lifted a travel advisory covering most of the coast in June 2015.