Kenya's shilling steady, awaiting c.bank action after statement

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya's shilling was broadly steady near 3-1/2-year lows to the dollar early on Friday after the central bank said it was ready to act to stem a sharp depreciation in the currency. By 0646 GMT, the shilling was trading at 102.55/65 to the dollar, compared to Thursday's close of 102.45/65 per dollar. "The statement is good but the market is waiting to see what they will do," said one senior trader after the central bank issued a statement late on Thursday. The central bank said it was monitoring the currency closely and was "taking appropriate measure to eliminate disorderly market developments." It said it was ready to step up its activities "to stem a sharp depreciation." The bank has already hiked rates by 3 percentage points to 11.5 percent since June and has intervened at least three times this week to sell dollars to support the shilling. The next Monetary Policy Committee meeting is on Aug. 5. The shilling has been under pressure from the global strength of the dollar, a slide in valuable tourism revenues and a widening current account deficit. One trader said the slide had been accelerated recently as importers raced to buy foreign currency when the shilling weakened to more than 100 to the dollar. "I don't think most importers expected 100 to be broken this year," he said.