NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya's shilling firmed slightly against the dollar on Tuesday and traders expected it to gain later in the day, helped by dollar inflows from tea and horticulture exporters. At 0718 GMT, commercial banks quoted the shilling at 83.25/45 to the dollar, compared with Monday's close of 83.45/55. Traders said high domestic interest rates were helping the shilling by slowing down demand for credit, and by extension, demand for imported goods, which had led to less appetite for foreign exchange from importers. "We're still seeing very muted (dollar) demand coming from the corporate side, and then the high interest rates of course are still discouraging imports with the economy across the board experiencing a slowdown in demand," Dickson Magecha, trader at Standard Chartered Bank, said. "For now the market is looking at tea flows, horticultural flows later in the session. That could support the shilling to gain a bit towards 83." Tea and horticulture are Kenya's top two earners of foreign exchange. Tea earned 109 billion shillings in 2011, while horticulture is expected to earn about 84 billion shillings. Traders said they expect the shilling to trade in the 82.80-84.00 range in coming days. Technical analysis of the shilling's 14-day and 50-day simple moving average show it is expected to keep on a strengthening trend in the short term. The shilling has gained 2.2 percent in the year to date and is off an all-time low of 107 it hit against the dollar in October.

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