Overview: Kenya's 3.1% annual population growth rate - one of the highest in the world - has led to a decline in per capita output in each of the last three years, 1991-93. Undependable weather conditions and a shortage of arable land hamper long-term growth in agriculture, the leading economic sector. In industry and services, Nairobi's reluctance to embrace IMF-supported reforms has held back investment. Ethnic clashes and continued suspension of quick disbursing aid by the international donors kept growth at only 0.5% in 1993.

National product: GDP - purchasing power equivalent - $33.2 billion (1993 est.)

National product real growth rate: 0.5% (1993 est.)

National product per capita: $1,200 (1993 est.)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 55% (1993 est.)

Unemployment rate: 23.8% urban (1993 est.)

Budget:
revenues: $2.4 billion
expenditures: $2.8 billion, including capital expenditures of $740 million (1990 est.)

Exports: $1 billion (f.o.b., 1992 est.)
commodities: tea 25%, coffee 18%, petroleum products 11% (1990)
partners: EC 47%, Africa 23%, Asia 11%, US 4%, Middle East 3% (1991)

Imports: $1.6 billion (f.o.b., 1992 est.)
commodities: machinery and transportation equipment 29%, petroleum and petroleum products 15%, iron and steel 7%, raw materials, food and consumer goods (1989)
partners: EC 46%, Asia 23%, Middle East 20%, US 5% (1991)

External debt: $7 billion (1992 est.)

Industrial production: growth rate 5.4% (1989 est.); accounts for 13% of GDP

Electricity:
capacity: 730,000 kW
production: 2.54 billion kWh
consumption per capita: 100 kWh (1990)

Industries: small-scale consumer goods (plastic, furniture, batteries, textiles, soap, cigarettes, flour), agricultural processing, oil refining, cement, tourism

Agriculture: most important sector, accounting for 25% of GDP and 65% of exports; cash crops - coffee, tea, sisal, pineapple; food products - corn, wheat, sugarcane, fruit, vegetables, dairy products, beef, pork, poultry, eggs; food output not keeping pace with population growth, and crop production has been extended into marginal land

Illicit drugs: widespread wild, small-plot cultivation of marijuana and gat; most locally consumed; transit country for Southwest Asian heroin moving to West Africa and onward to Europe and North America; Indian methaqualone also transits on way to South Africa

Economic aid:
recipient: US commitments, including Ex-Im (FY70-89), $839 million; Western (non-US) countries, ODA and OOF bilateral commitments (1970-89), $7.49 billion; OPEC bilateral aid (1979-89), $74 million; Communist countries (1970-89), $83 million

Currency: 1 Kenyan shilling (KSh) = 100 cents
Exchange rates: Kenyan shillings (KSh) per US$1 - 68.413 (December 1993), 32.217 (1992), 27.508 (1991), 22.915 (1990), 20.572 (1989)

Fiscal year: 1 July - 30 June

NOTE: The information regarding Kenya on this page is re-published from the 1995 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Kenya Economy 1995 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Kenya Economy 1995 should be addressed to the CIA.