Leading Economic Indicators - February 2008

The Leading Economic Indicators (LEI) for February 2008 is a monthly publication of the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics that highlights trends in consumer price indices and inflation, interest rates, exchange rates, international trade, agriculture, energy, manufacturing, building and construction, tourism and transport. Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by 3.07 per cent from 266.37 points in February 2008 to 274.55 points in March 2008. Month-on-month overall inflation rate increased from 19.1 per cent in February 2008 to 21.8 per cent in March 2008. The Kenyan Shilling depreciated against the Tanzanian and the Ugandan Shillings during the same period. The Shilling depreciated against the Ugandan Shilling and Tanzanian Shilling to trade at KSh 26.845 and KSh 19.142 at the end of March 2008 up from KSh 23.995 and KSh 16.592 at the end of February 2008, respectively. 1 The benchmark 91-day Treasury bill rose marginally by 0.29 percentage points from 6.99 per cent in January 2008 to 4.28 per cent in February.