NAIROBI, Kenya - Kenya has overtaken Ghana, Tunisia and Ethiopia, to become the ninth largest African economy, after Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Angola, Morocco, Libya and Sudan.
This is after the country’s key statistics body, the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), revised upwards the economy, estimating it to be 25.2% bigger, following the recalculation of the national statistics, known as rebasing.
Consequently, the value of Kenyan goods and services - gross domestic product - is now estimated at Ksh4.76 trillion as at last year up from Ksh3.80 trillion figures earlier stated last May in the Kenya Economic survey 2014.
At the same time, the average wealth of every Kenyan, known as the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, is now $1,246 (Ksh111,330) up from $994 (Ksh88,813).
Following the move Kenya is now under the World Bank’s category of lower middle income nations as the GDP per capita now stands above the World Bank’s benchmark of US$1,036.
By GDP per capita that factors in population size Kenya has climbed at position 25 from the previous 31 in Africa.
The Government however said the new figures do not exactly show any dramatic difference in the structure of the economy but reveal previous miscalculations.
“An increase in GDP per capita does not mean that Kenyans will be well off than they were a year ago,” Anne Waiguru, the Devolution and Planning Cabinet Secretary said during a news conference.
The new figures show emerging sectors gaining more significance in the economy, including Real estate – 8.2percent and ICT, which was previously not treated as an independent economic sector in previous estimates.
It shows agriculture is still the backbone of the economy, with a five-year average 2009 to 2013 share 24.1% to 25.4% of the economy while the manufacturing contribution to GDP increased from 9.5percent to 11.3%.
East African Business Week
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