NAIROBI: The Kenyan shilling weakened on Monday as importers rushed to buy dollars to meet their obligations ahead of the holidays.
At the 1300 GMT close of trade, commercial banks posted the shilling at 90.35/45 to the dollar, slightly down from Friday's close of 90.25/35.
"It is basically increased importer demand because of the shorter week and also before people close for the holidays," said a currency trader with a commercial bank.
Markets will be closed on Friday for the country's independence day.
Importers usually require dollars to pay for bringing petroleum products and machinery required for industrial production into the country.
The shilling is down 4.8 percent against the US currency this year after frequent attacks by Islamists scared away tourists and their dollars.
But its losses have been limited, compared with other currencies on the continent like the South African rand, in the face of a stronger dollar.
Some of its resilience has been attributed to the central bank's interventions through the sale of dollars in the market and liquidity management.
In the stock market, the benchmark NSE-20 share index edged up by 9 points to close at 5,193.96 points.
Shares of telecoms operator Safaricom jumped 2 percent to 15 shillings each, driven by demand from local retail investors.
Daniel Kuyoh, a research analyst at Kingdom Securities, said Safaricom shares had surged to record highs this month on the back of a raft of good news from the company, including higher earnings and the signing of a government contract.
In the debt market, bonds worth 1.2 billion shillings were traded, unchanged from Friday's volume.
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