NAIROBI, April 19 (Reuters) - The Kenyan shilling held within a well-worn range against the dollar on Thursday and traders said the local currency would remain supported by tight liquidity, in the absence of other clear domestic drivers. Traders said tightening liquidity in the market helped by recent central bank's open market operations and corporate value-added tax payments this week would support the shilling. At 0707 GMT, banks quoted the shilling at 83.10/30 against the dollar, the same level it closed on Wednesday. "The central bank will keep mopping up whenever excess liquidity rears it head in the market. That will keep the shilling supported at these levels," said Bhavin Chandarai, a trader at Imperial Bank. Technical chartists saw the shilling trading within the recent range of 83.00-83.50 in the coming days. The regulator has been in the market soaking up excess shilling liquidity to the tune of 31.65 billion shillings ($380.6 million) over the last two weeks, helping stabilise the average interbank rate after it fell to 10.2 percent on April 5. The weighted average interbank interest rate has since risen to 17.1 percent on Wednesday from 16.4 percent a day earlier, edging closer to the central bank rate of 18 percent. Traders said they expected foreign investor inflows into a two-year Treasury bond worth 5 billion shillings and being auctioned on April 25 to offer further support. They said high rates on government securities will keep attracting investors, despite the government scaling down its domestic borrowing for the 2011/12 fiscal year to 62.1 billion shillings from 119.5 billion shillings. The central bank offered a total of 4 billion shillings on its 91- and 182-day bills on sale next week, down from the usual 7 billion shillings it has auctioned in recent weeks. "We also expect good inflows ... from foreign investors who are attracted by the good yields on the two-year government paper," said Bank of Africa in a daily report.

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