Kenya: Inflation accelerates in April from the prior month
Latest reading: Consumer prices were up 5.6% on a year-on-year basis in April, following a 4.4% increase in the prior month. Despite being the strongest reading since March 2024, inflation remained within the Central Bank’s target of 2.5–7.5%.
Relative to the previous month’s data, there were higher price pressures for food and non-alcoholic beverages (+8.8% on a year-on-year basis vs +7.7% in March), housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels (+2.4% vs +2.0% in March), transportation (+10.0% vs +3.8% in March) and clothing (+1.9% vs +1.8% in March).
Finally, consumer prices rose 1.43% in April on a month-on-month basis, following a 0.54% rise in the prior month.
Panelist insight: On the inflation outlook, EIU analysts said:
“We expect strong monthly price increases to continue for several months to come, raising the annual average inflation rate for 2026 to 5.7%. As GDP growth picks up and interest rates fall further, in the 2026-30 forecast period as a whole inflation will average 5.8%. A resumption of the kinetic phrase of the Iran war could see global fuel prices rise further, pushing up our inflation forecasts for Kenya.”