NAIROBI: Kenya's shilling held steady against the dollar on Thursday ahead of a budget reading by the finance minister in parliament later in the day.
At 0740 GMT, the shilling was trading at 97.05/15 to the dollar, barely changed from Wednesday's close of 97.10/20.
Henry Rotich is expected to announce fresh measures to shore up growth in east Africa's biggest economy and expand the tax base to boost revenue collection. The IMF last week trimmed Kenya's growth outlook to 6.5 percent from 6.9 percent.
"The market is flat ahead of the budget. People want to see the budget first before making the next move," said a trader at one Nairobi-based commercial bank.
The shilling has been under pressure from the global strength of the dollar, a growing current account deficit and sliding foreign exchange earnings from tourism as visitors have stayed away due to a series of attacks by Somali Islamists.
"In respect to the yawning current account deficit, there is no better place to address that than the budget. We want to see if there are measures to address that," added the trader.
The shilling has lost about 7.4 percent against the dollar this year.
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