President William Ruto on Wednesday, March 22 addressed the dollar shortage in the country that has hit manufacturers and traders hard in recent months. The President spoke at the listing of the Laptrust Imara Income-Real Estate Investment Trust (I-Reit) at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE).

“As a government we have innovative inventions and undertaken innovative strategy to ensure that we ease the burden of availability of dollar in our market,” he asserted, touting Kenya’s recently announced deal to import fuel on credit.

The deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia will see Kenya import diesel, super petrol and jet fuel on credit in a deal meant to ease demand for the dollar.

In a shot at forex traders betting against the Shilling, Ruto expressed confidence that the Shilling would gain against the dollar in coming weeks.

“I am giving you free advice that those of you who are holding dollars, you shortly might go into losses. You better do what you must do because this market is going to be different in a couple of weeks,” Ruto stated.

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The Laptrust Imara I-Reit marked the end of the 7-year listing drought that has persisted at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE).

“It will provide investors with a unique opportunity to invest in a diversified portfolio of income-generating real estate assets. This is also expected to spur to other pension schemes heavily invested in physical assets to unlock liquidity for the benefit of pensioners,” Laptrust noted in a statement.

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