Kenya’s economy shrink in the year of Covid-19 pandemic.

Kenya’s economy was hit by 0.3% in 2020 against 5% growth in 2019, as it was hit by the Covid-19 crisis.
The 2021 Economic Survey released Thursday shows that accommodation and food services, education, and professional and administrative service activities recorded a sharp decline in 2020.

It comes at a time when Kenya has managed its economy to a point that caused the economy to expand to 10,753 trillion shillings in 2020, from 10,256 trillion shillings in 2019.

The report shows that employment in different sectors of the economy has been affected by preventive measures introduced to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

Most jobs (83 percent) were in the informal sector.

A total of 2.9 million jobs have been reported in the formal sector, according to the report.

Total employment outside of small-scale agricultural and livestock activities gained 4.1 percent to 17.4 million in 2020.

Agriculture was one of the best performing sectors in the economy in 2020 after registering 4.6% growth, mainly led by the tea and sugarcane industry.

“This is due to increased production of tea and food products such as beans, rice, sorghum and millet,” Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani said during the publication of the report on Thursday.

SC said there was a need to balance the timing of the report with its accuracy, as it apologized to stakeholders for the four-month delay.

Here are the main points of the study:

Real value-added growth from agriculture, forestry and fisheries increased to 4.8% in 2020.

· Wage employment in the private sector has decreased. Wage employment in the public sector has increased. Employment in the informal sector has entered.

A total of 2.9 million jobs were reported in the formal sector by 2020.

· The manufacturing sector has declined. Continuous loans to the sector increased by 11.8 percent to 80.5 billion shillings.

The construction industry grew by 11.8 percent compared to 5.6 percent growth in 2019. Consumption of cement increased during the previous year

Tourism revenue decreased 43.9% to Sh91.7 billion.

The performance of the Transport and Storage Sector has been affected by Covid maintenance measures. The volume of commercial cargo traffic addressed decreased by 8.9%.

The ICT sector grew by 4.8% due to the increase in mobile money transactions and the use of ICT to facilitate out-of-school learning.