NAIROBI (Reuters) - The Kenya shilling weakened on Friday, pushed down by importer orders for the greenback, although traders said they expected the central bank to keep supporting the local currency. At 0652 GMT, banks quoted the shilling at 84.50/70 per dollar, 0.3 percent weaker than Thursday's close of 84.25/45. "Guys are covering their orders from yesterday," said John Muli, a trader at Africa Banking Corporation. "We might hold at this level because the central bank looks keen to support the shilling." Traders said the short-term outlook was for the shilling to weaken as Treasury bill yields fall towards single digits, last seen in September, reducing their attractiveness to offshore investors, while liquidity increases due to debt redemptions. They said charts showed a base had formed at 84.20 and the globally stronger dollar was set to gain ground against the local currency. The U.S currency has strengthened as investors move out of riskier assets such as the shilling due to the deepening turmoil political in Greece and fears of contagion spreading to other stressed euro zone economies. The central bank, which has been in the market selling unspecified amounts of dollars directly to commercial banks and soaking up liquidity, was expected to continue intervening to prevent the shilling from falling drastically. The regulator was forced to tighten liquidity aggressively to stabilise the shilling last year, after the local currency tumbled through a series of record lows, causing widespread condemnation of the central bank's monetary policy stance. "We believe that central bank will not watch from the periphery seeing the shilling weakening without their intervention," said Bank of Africa in a daily report.

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