Bartamaha (Nairobi):-Uganda’s central bank will intervene if necessary to ensure its markets remain stable after Somali Islamists detonated bombs in the capital Kampala, the bank’s deputy governor said on Wednesday.

Louis Kasekende said it was likely some investors would be rattled by the twin blasts after Somalia’s al Qaeda-inspired al Shabaab movement threatened more attacks if Uganda did not withdraw peacekeepers from the Horn of Africa nation.

He said the central bank would closely monitor day-to-day movements in prices, interest rates and exchange rates.

“I know definitely there will be some people who will be unnerved by this but they should trust us,” he told Reuters.

“If need be we shall take measures to ensure stability in the forex market and in the domestic market,” Kasekende said on the sidelines of a central bank conference in Kenya.

He said he expected east Africa’s third largest economy to recover from a difficult 2009 and for growth to continue strengthening in 2011.

“We expect a recovery in growth in 2010 and definitely higher growth in 2011,” he said.

Official forecasts predict the economy will expand by 6.4 percent in the current financial year, which started this month, and at an average rate of 7 percent thereafter.

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Source:-Reuters.

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