Kenya's gross domestic product is expected to grow more than the projected 2.8 percent this year thanks to a strong performance in tourism, the planning minister said on Saturday.
Tourists are flocking back to Kenya after shunning the country for years because of terrorism scares.
"We were expecting this year to reach a 2.8 percent rate of growth per annum but I think, given the boom in tourism which was not expected, I think we may go a little bit above that," planning minister Anyang Nyong'o told Reuters.
"It's too early to have a realistic projection but come March then it will be much easier," he said while attending a business conference in the Tanzanian city of Arusha.
Kenya's Tourism Board expects a 15 percent increase over last year in the number of visitors to the country.
The tourism industry, one of the east African country's top foreign exchange earners, took a huge hit in 1998 when a bombing at the US embassy in Nairobi killed 214 people.
Tourism revenues are now picking up. The country earned 25 billion shillings from tourism last year and expects that to increase to 28 billion shillings this year.
The Central Bank of Kenya in August revised its growth estimate for 2004 to 2.3 percent after the country was hit by a severe food shortage that is affecting more than three million people. Erratic rains have caused crop failure on a large scale in Kenya.
Nyong'o said the economy would receive a boost from an expected increase in construction activity after the country announced a mortgage plan for its civil servants.
"There is beginning to be a boom in the construction industry, given the initiative the government has taken in providing civil servants with low interest mortgages at three percent per annum payable over 15 years, that is going to stimulate construction," he said.