Kenya’s private sector recorded higher sale volumes despite inflation rising to 4.1% in April, the latest Stanbic Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) shows.
- •The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) attributed the inflation rise last month due to increase in prices of commodities under food and non-alcoholic beverages, transport and electricity.
- •Stanbic’s index shows robust gains across the services, agriculture and construction sectors, contrasting with lower sales in manufacturing and wholesale & retail.
- •New orders expanded at the fastest rate since February 2022 pushing readings of the monthly PMI to 52.0 in April, from 51.7 in March.
“The Kenya PMI for April reveals a private sector expanding robustly, and at the fastest pace in over two years. Output and new orders rose due to increased customer sales from marketing, implying a steady improvement in consumer demand conditions in April,” said Christopher Legilisho, Economist at Standard Bank, the parent company of Stanbic Bank Kenya.
“Price pressures rose mildly in April; input prices rose to a 3-m high, but the rate of inflation was well below the historical average. Output prices also rose as firms passed on buying Price increases to consumers,” he added
Stanbic’s PMI shows that job creation quickened as firms looked to ease pressure on workloads. Although the uplift in employment was relatively mild during April, it was still the strongest observed in nearly one year, as firms also sought to address workloads through more staffing.
