(Reporting by Hereward Holland Editing by Alexander Winning)
NAIROBI, April 28 (Reuters) - Kenya's shilling held its ground against the dollar on Friday, as traders were
cautious before the introduction of oil import deals that should
ease persistent FX demand from fuel marketers.
At 0906 GMT, commercial banks quoted the shilling at
135.90/136.10 per dollar, compared with 135.85/136.05 at
Thursday's close.
The shilling has lost about 9.2% against the dollar since
the start of the year, hitting a fresh low on Friday of
135.95/136.15 before recovering slightly.
In a bid to staunch the fall of the shilling, the government
signed oil import deals with companies in the United Arab
Emirates and Saudi Arabia in March, putting in place a longer
credit period to stagger demand for dollars.
The deals are expected to kick-in in May.
"We're seeing the usual (FX) demand from energy and
end-month demand but everybody is taking a wait-and-see approach
as we wait for the government-to-government deals to take
effect," said one trader at a commercial bank.
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