Business

The Kenyan shilling held steady on Tuesday supported by tight liquidity in the market, with dealers expecting the currency to come under pressure from importers buying U.S. dollars to meet their end-month needs.

The shilling, which is up 2.2 percent this year after recovering from its lowest level of 107 per dollar hit in October, thanks to a tight monetary policy, has been stuck in a narrow range for three straight sessions, oscillating within 83.00-83.50.

Commercial banks quoted the shilling at 83.10/30 per dollar, not far from Monday's close of 83.15/35.   

"Liquidity is tight in the market. But we expect some pressure this week from importers, especially from the energy sector, paying their monthly obligations," said a trader at one commercial bank.   

The central bank soaked up liquidity totalling 31.65 billion shillings ($380.6 million) over the last two weeks, helping stabilise the weighted average interbank rate, which fell to 10.2 percent on April 5.