Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi has defended Kenya’s economic performance as captured in the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) 2026 Economic Survey, saying the country’s 2025 growth demonstrated “significant resilience” despite multiple domestic and global shocks.
Speaking while unpacking the report, Mbadi noted that although overall economic growth recorded a marginal dip of 0.1%, key sectors showed notable recovery compared to 2024, signaling underlying strength in the economy.
“The broader lens of KNBS’ 2026 Economic Survey shows that the economic performance of 2025 was better than 2024, demonstrated significant resilience despite multiple shocks,” Mbadi said.
He pointed to the construction sector, which had previously contracted, saying it has since rebounded strongly.
“In 2024 we had the construction sector, which grew quite negative, but others have now picked up to over 6% if you look at the data,” he explained.
Mbadi also highlighted a sharp recovery in mining and quarrying, which he said had been one of the worst-performing sectors the previous year.
“The other sector that contracted was mining and quarrying, which had a negative growth in 2024 of 7.8%. It has rebounded to 14.9%,” he said.
According to the CS, such rebounds across key sectors mean the overall economic outlook for 2025 was stronger than that of 2024, even if headline growth figures appear modest.
“So if you look at all this, the economic performance of 2025 was much better than 2024, even though there is that 0.1% drop in economic growth,” Mbadi said.
He further defended Kenya’s 4.6% growth rate, terming it a solid performance for an economy of its scale.
“And I want to point out that 4.6% growth for an economy of the size of Kenya is not small,” he stated.
Mbadi added that while higher growth remains desirable, expectations must be realistic when compared to global economic giants.
“Yes, we would want a slightly higher or better economic growth of 5% and above, but that growth of 4.6 is not small for our economy,” he said.
Drawing international comparisons, the Treasury CS noted that even advanced economies rarely achieve high growth rates due to their size.
“I want to give you an example. If the American economy grows even by 1.5%, that’s big. Even 2% is significant. It’s not realistic for the US economy to grow at 4% because of its size,” Mbadi added. “The Chinese economy is the same.”
His remarks come amid ongoing debate over Kenya’s economic trajectory, with the government maintaining that structural reforms and sectoral recovery efforts are beginning to yield results despite global uncertainties.
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