Business is now sluggish at Shamas Auto Parts, a spare parts store in Nairobi, Kenya.
A strong US dollar has an effect. It makes imports from other nations more expensive and increases the cost of converting local currency into dollars.
Financial hardships are being made worse at a time when the Kenyan shilling is down 6% from last year.
“Sometimes you find that there is an increase of about 10-25% in the cost of a spare part within a period of maybe six to twelve months, which people are not expecting”, Michael Gachie, purchasing manager with Shamas Auto Parts says.
“For us, right now we are in wholesale and retail of parts and you find that most of the customers are complaining a lot”, the manager concludes.
According to the benchmark ICE U.S. Dollar Index, the dollar is up 18% this year against a basket of key currencies.
“We are continuing to lose. I used to take my children for holidays. They cannot enjoy those holidays anymore because of the weakening shilling. We don’t have enough cash flows to put it about in the house”, Albert Chege says.
