Kenya’s private sector activity contracted in March for the first time since August, partly due to the war \u200bin the Middle East, with only the wholesale and \u200cretail sectors experiencing expansion, a survey showed this\u00a0 Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The Stanbic Bank Kenya Purchasing Managers’ Index fell to 47.7 in March from 50.4 \u200bin February, the survey showed. Readings above 50.0 indicate \u200bgrowth in business activity, while those below that signal \u2060contraction. It is the first time since August 2025 \u200bthat the index has gone below 50.<\/p>\n
“The slowdown in private \u200bsector activity was broadly demand-led, with many firms pointing to constrained customer spending, reduced cash circulation and tighter household budgets,” Stanbic Bank said \u200bin comments accompanying the survey.<\/p>\n
“The Middle East war also resulted \u200bin more cautious spending patterns among some firms, as well as logistics \u200cconstraints \u2060to customer deliveries and higher prices for fuel and transport.”<\/p>\n
President William Ruto said on March 30 that the government was assessing the war’s impact on prices and that measures were \u200bbeing put \u200bin place to \u2060ensure Kenya retains sufficient supplies.<\/p>\n
The Stanbic Kenya survey said the only sector that experienced expansion \u200bin March was wholesale and retail.<\/p>\n
“Output and \u200bnew orders \u2060declined in most sectors, implying that businesses expect to be constrained by the disruptions from geopolitical tensions,” Stanbic Bank Economist \u2060Christopher Legilisho \u200bsaid.<\/p>\n
The Finance Ministry forecasts the economy \u200bgrew by 5.0% in 2025 and will expand 5.3% this year, up from \u200b4.7% in 2024.<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14567,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-30980","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The Stanbic Kenya survey said the only sector that experienced expansion \u200bin March was wholesale and retail.","published_date":"","news_description":"The Stanbic Kenya survey said the only sector that experienced expansion \u200bin March was wholesale and retail.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30997,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30980\/revisions\/30997"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=30980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}