Tuesday June 30, 07:43 PM
UPDATE 1-Kenyan inflation eases to 17.8 pct in June -official
NAIROBI, June 30 (Reuters) - Kenya's headline inflation slipped to 17.8 percent in June from 19.5 percent in May as food prices fell, an official with the government's statistics office said on Tuesday.
Underlying inflation, which excludes food prices, increased to 9.9 percent from 7.0 percent previously.
'The decrease was due to a continued fall in the prices of sukuma wiki (kales), cabbages, potatoes and other seasonal food items,' Rogers Mumo, ICT manager for the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, told Reuters.
Inflation started to drop in east African economies this quarter after racing to multi-year highs in 2008 on the back of the commodities price boom abroad and adverse weather at home that curbed food production.
Kenya, the region's biggest economy, was particularly hard-hit after a bloody post-election crisis disrupted farming and transport at the beginning of 2008.
Officials expect inflation to halve in February 2010 when Kenya fully adopts a new method for calculating the rate.
(Reporting by Helen Nyambura-Mwaura; Editing by Padraic Cassidy)
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