Kenya’s economy overtook those of Ghana and Tunisia after the statistics agency overhauled its data to increase the size of gross domestic product by a quarter.
GDP was measured at $55.2 billion last year from $44.1 billion previously, Zachary Mwangi, acting director-general of the statistics agency, told reporters in the capital, Nairobi. That compares with the World Bank’s estimates of $48 billion for Ghana and $47 billion for Tunisia.
Kenya revised its data to take account of expanding industries such as mobile-phone money transfers and informal businesses, while also changing the base year of the figures to 2009 from 2001. Last year’s growth rate was adjusted to 5.7 percent from 4.7 percent, Mwangi said.
“The rebased GDP estimates put Kenya among the lower middle-income nations,” Planning Secretary Anne Waiguru told reporters. The data “demonstrates that the economy is larger, but doesn’t mean that people are less poor or wealthier than they were yesterday,” she said.
The shilling fell 0.3 percent to 89.35 against the dollar as of 1:47 p.m. in Nairobi after earlier strengthening to 89.15 following the publication of the data
