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Kenya’s FY’2022/2023 Budget Review

Apr 23, 2022

On 7th April 2022, the National Treasury presented Kenya’s FY’2022/2023 National Budget, to the National Assembly two months earlier than the usual June date in a bid to provide Parliament with ample time to discuss and approve the Budget, before it winds down ahead of the upcoming August 9th elections. Additionally, the Cabinet Secretary for the National Treasury tabled the Finance Bill 2022 in Parliament for consideration and if the Parliament approves the bill, it will be forwarded for presidential assent, after which the proposals will come into effect. Notably, the total budget estimates for FY’2022/23 will increase by 10.3% to Kshs 3.3 tn from the Kshs 3.0 tn in FY’2021/2022 while the total revenue will increase by 20....

Kenya Listed Banks FY’2021 Report

Apr 17, 2022

Following the release of the FY’2021 results by Kenyan listed banks, the Cytonn Financial Services Research Team undertook an analysis on the financial performance of the listed banks and identified the key factors that shaped the performance of the sector. The Asset Quality for the listed banks improved in FY’2021, with the gross NPL ratio declining by 1.2% points to 12.3%, from 13.5% in FY’2020. We however note that despite this improvement in the asset quality, the NPL ratio remains higher than the 10-year average of 8.1%. The listed banks’ management quality also improved, with the Cost to Income ratio improving by 16.9% points to 56.4%, from 73.3% recorded in FY’2020, as banks continued to reduce their provisioning levels following the improved business environment during the period. Consequently, Core Earnings per Share (EPS) recorded a weighted growth of 82.9% in FY’2021, from a weighted decline of 26.8% recorded in FY&rsquo...

Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) Performance in Kenya

Apr 10, 2022

Kenya’s Real Estate sector has been one of the fastest-growing sectors of the economy over the past years, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 6.4% in the past 6 years. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the sector realized a slowdown in activities with the most affected investment classes being the hospitality sector brought about by a decline in tourism arrivals and the commercial office sector, which saw people adopting the working-from-home initiative coupled with an oversupply of 6.7 mn SQFT as of 2021. As the real estate sector recovers from the pandemic effects, key challenges such as inadequate access to development financing still persist as most developers rely on bank loans as their main source of funding despite lower lending levels witnessed in Q4’2021. The gross loans advanced to the Real Estate sector decreased by 1.5% to Kshs 456.0 bn in FY’2021, from Kshs 463.0 bn in Q3’2021 according to the

Kenya Macroeconomic Review

Apr 3, 2022

The Kenyan Economy is projected to grow at an average rate of 4.9% in 2022, from an estimate of 5.6% in 2021, mainly on the back of the global recovery and the easing of COVID-19 containment measures following an increase in vaccination rates and reduced infections. The move is expected to support growth in sectors like tourism, hospitality, manufacturing and trade, which are yet to fully recover from the pandemic. The table below shows the GDP projections according to various organizations; GDP Growth Rate No. Organization 2021 Estimates 2022 Projections

Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Review

Apr 3, 2022

Economic Growth: According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Sub Saharan Africa is projected to register a 3.7% GDP growth in 2022, slower than the 4.0% growth estimate recorded in 2021. The slowed economic growth is partly attributable to the emergence on new strains of COVID-19 such as the Omicron variant that necessitated imposition of measures to curb its spread coupled with increasing inflationary pressures due to broadening of price pressures of key imports such as oil. Economic growth has further been weighed down by slow COVID-19 vaccine roll out, with the region having fully vaccinated only 12.0% of its population, as compared to a global average of 58.5%.  Additionally, the region is facing debt sustainability concerns, with most of the countries having huge debt levels, with the IMF highlighting in their