Central Bank of Kenya announced, last Friday, a 25- year Ksh50 billion ($500 million) bond issuance to fund energy, water and transport projects.

The Central bank indicated that the operation should start this month and investors could invest between Ksh100,000 ($1,000) and Ksh20 million ($200,000). Only state-run firms, semi-autonomous government agencies and public universities can exceed the Ksh20 million limit. The fixed 12.2% interest rates should be paid every semester till 2044, the maturity period.

Recently, Kenya has been really active in the debt market to fund its projects, notably those in its “Big 4 agenda.” The latter is aimed at boosting the economy by accelerating investments in four main sectors namely, agriculture, manufacturing, health and housing.

In 2017, the country’s debt reached 57.1% of GDP against 44% at end 2013. Due to that, some investors were worried because some of those debts were reaching maturity.

Last month, the government announced that it would take a syndicated loan of $1 billion to refinance a loan maturing in June 2019.

Moutiou Adjibi Nourou