Author: David Indeje

Kenya received only 305,635 international tourists in the period between January 2021 to June 2021,  a fifth of the two million it received in 2019, Tourism Minister Najib Balala. Speaking on Thursday while launching the Tourism Research Institute’s international tourism performance report, he said the industry is encouraged by the numbers though still low.  “We are encouraged by the numbers although we are not there yet,” he said adding that “We understand this is because of the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdowns that ensued which affected the travel trends this year.” In 2019, the country’s tourism industry registered improved performance…

Fuel prices remain unchanged in all the major towns in Kenya over the next month to August 14, 2021, on Wednesday, according to the latest review from the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA). This is the fourth consecutive month that the Diesel and Kerosene prices have remained unchanged. This is attributable to the implementation of the government’s fuel price stabilization fund established in June by the National Treasury. The Ksh.1.4 billion fund is used to compensate oil marketers as payments for haircuts taken to cushion Kenyans from higher fuel prices. “In the period under review, the price of Super…

Twitter on Wednesday announced that it will end its Fleets feature on August 3. Fleets were introduced in November 2020. They allow users to post full-screen photos, videos, reactions to tweets or plain text that disappears after 24 hours. “We hoped Fleets would help more people feel comfortable joining the conversation on Twitter,” Ilya Brown, Twitter’s vice president of product, said in a statement. “But, in the time since we introduced Fleets to everyone, we haven’t seen an increase in the number of new people joining the conversation with Fleets like we hoped.” “Fleets are mostly used by people who are…

Unaitas, a deposit-taking Savings and Credit Cooperative (SACCO) has secured a KSh1 billion facility from Oikocredit to fund small businesses in the agribusiness value chain. With over 378,000 members, Unaitas says it will be able to support over 5000 Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) to recover from the Covid-19 impact and empower them to achieve economic growth. https://twitter.com/Unaitas/status/1414544563658756096?s=20 ”These enterprises include farmers’ groups and cooperatives, individual farmers, farm input dealers and transporters,” the firm said in a statement. The funds will be repaid over six years allowing them to offer loans to members. Caroline Mulwa, Oikocredit’s Investments manager East…

Paint manufacturer Crown Paints Plc has raised Ksh.642.7 million from its pre-emptive rights issue. The amount, equivalent to 64.3 million more shares from an initially projected 81 million more shares for a combined Ksh.809.6 million, will be listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange. “The total number of shares that were applied for under the Rights Issue was 80,959,470 against an offer of 71,181,000 shares,” Transaction Advisors Bob Karina, Chairman of Faida Investment Bank said. According to the company, the funds will secure its balance sheet strength to give it a competitive advantage in a competitive market.  “This is a launchpad…

Kenya’s current account deficit widened as imports grew at a faster pace compared to export earnings in the first four months of the year. Data from the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) shows the deficit, measured as a percentage of the gross domestic product, stood at 5.5 per cent in the 12 months to May 2021 compared to 5.2 per cent of GDP in the 12 months to May 2020. “The higher deficit was attributed to lower service receipts, which more than offset the increased receipts from exports and remittances,” said CBK in its weekly bulletin. Diaspora remittances have surged…