Kenya’s shilling, the world’s best- performing currency against the dollar over the past month, depreciated today on increased demand for dollars. The currency of East Africa’s biggest economy declined as much as 0.5 percent to 90.20 before trading 0.2 percent lower at 89.90 at 2:13 p.m. in Nairobi, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The currency has added 10 percent since Nov. 1, making it the best performer worldwide against the dollar among more than 170 currencies tracked by Bloomberg. The Kenyan central bank raised its benchmark interest rate by 1.5 percentage points to 18 percent to contain inflation after prices surged more than double the government’s target. The worst regional drought in 60 years and higher fuel prices helped spurr inflation to 19.7 percent in November from 18.9 percent in the previous month, the National Bureau of Statistics said Nov.29. “The weakening is largely due to the fact that there is demand for dollars by businesses and the market had already factored in a potential rise of the benchmark by the central bank,� Wilson Mutai a dealer at Nairobi-based African Banking Corp., said in a phone interview today. The Tanzanian shilling strengthened for the second day in three, gaining 0.6 percent to trade at 1,671 per dollar while the Uganda’s currency gained for the fifth day, rising 0.4 percent to 2,525 per dollar. Editors: Ana Monteiro, Linda Shen To contact the reporter on this story: Johnstone Ole Turana in Nairobi at jturana@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at asguazzin@bloomberg.net

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