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Continue from page 6 potential the environment is for an entrepreneurial ideology. “Maintaining a stable growth rate is encouraging as Kenyans celebrate their 50th independence anniversary,” said Diarietou Gaye, World Bank Country Director for Kenya. “One key message of this report is that Kenya has many achievements worth celebrating but there is ample room for improving the policy environment to amplify these achievements and ultimately, to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity in Kenya.” According with KNBS provisional estimates of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) show that the country's economy maintained a moderate growth of 4.4 per cent in the third quarter of 2013 compared to 4.5 percent recorded during a similar quarter of 2012. The growth was mainly supported by improved performances in financial intermediation, transport and communication, wholesale and retail trade, manufacturing, construction and mining and quarrying activities. But still there was a slowdown in the growth of agriculture and forestry sector which impacted negatively on the economic performance. Activities of the hotels and restaurants rebounded though the growth remained relatively suppressed. We witness that there was some seasonally adjusted growth, with a track of perspicuity performance on consecutive, quarters indicating that the third quarter 2013 grew by 1.6 per cent compared to a growth of 0.8 per cent in second quarter 2013. Money market was not left behind, despite of the mixed performance of Kenya Shilling during the same period. The Shilling remained stable against the other East African currencies, strengthened against the South African Rand but it was weakened against the US dollar and Sterling pound during recorded period. Activities of the capital market increased significantly with the value of transactions at the Nairobi Security Exchange almost doubling from Ksh 21,500 million over the third quarter of 2012 to Ksh 42,064 million during the review period. Measured against the third quarter of 2012, value of total exports decreased by 3.9 per cent in the same quarter of 2013. In contrast, the value of total imports rose by 2.7 per cent over the same period resulting to widening of the current account deficit. These growth momentum is expected to be sustained into 2014, with the growth rate projected to improve modestly to 5.1%, according to the Kenya Economic Update for December 2013, the ninth in a series published by the World Bank half yearly. Do business report of 2014 Kenya score of 4 on the depth of credit information index and a score of 10 on the strength of legal rights index. Higher scores indicate more credit information and stronger legal rights for borrowers and lenders. Globally, Kenya stands at 13 in the ranking of 189 countries on the ease of getting credit. The rankings for comparator economies and the regional average ranking provide other useful information for assessing how well regulations and institutions in Kenya support lending and borrowing. This strong macroeconomic foundation and structural reforms are what makes some of the key drivers of performance. These will be advantageous to entrepreneurs, traders and investors of Nairobi resident and its because of Kenya business hub and it’s potential currency union to East Africa Community , so any protocol for East Africa Monetary Union; if realized and reduce transaction cost for regional trade, facilitate aid and lending to these countries and drive joint projects and the exploration and extraction of natural resources. Infrastructure and the currency union will enhance Kenya’s position as East Africa’s gateway to the rest of world . By Bruce Amoke [email protected] Nairobi Backer Advertisement Magazine