knbs ke.knbs.imports-by-economic-category.annual annual

Total Imports by Broad Economic Category.

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VERSION v2026-08-26

UPDATED 11d ago

CHECKED 1d ago

COVERAGE 2015 - 2024

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SIZE 9.7 KB

FREQUENCY annual

PIPELINE automated

LICENSE Not stated

SOURCE www.knbs.or.ke

Kenya's imports classified by what the goods are used for rather than what they are, for the ten years to 2024. 300 observations across 30 nodes: seven top-level categories, their components, and the sub-components below those, plus the total.

This is the import mirror of the domestic exports table in the same chapter, and the two tell opposite stories. Kenya's export mix barely moved over the decade. Its import mix moved a great deal.

Fuels and lubricants went from 15.1 per cent of imports to 23.2, and from KSh 238.3 billion to KSh 627.9 billion, a rise of 163.5 per cent against 71.1 for imports as a whole. Transport equipment went the other way, falling from 16.9 per cent to 8.8 and shrinking in value from KSh 266.9 billion to KSh 236.9 billion. It is the only category smaller in 2024 than in 2015.

Industrial supplies remain the largest category throughout, at 33.2 per cent rising to 34.5. Food and beverages grew fastest after fuels, from 7.9 per cent to 10.6. Machinery and other capital equipment fell from 18.2 per cent to 13.0.

One figure is printed wrong and is published as printed. In the 2024 provisional column, the Other row under transport equipment reads KSh 173,643,182 thousand while its own two sub-components sum to KSh 111,556,105 thousand. The gap is exactly that year's parts and accessories figure, so the printed Other has its sibling folded into it. Reading Other as its sub-components reproduces the category total to KSh 0.1, which is how the table's own arithmetic identifies the outlier. The export table in the same chapter carries the same defect in the same category and the same provisional column.

The Broad Economic Categories are a United Nations classification that cuts trade by end use, so a single commodity can sit in more than one category. Figures are in thousands of Kenya shillings, and the total matches Tables 6.3, 6.16 and 6.17 exactly in every year.

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WHAT THE IMPORTS ARE FOR

Kenya's export mix barely moved in a decade; its import mix moved a lot, with fuel rising from 15 per cent of the bill to 23.

Total imports by Broad Economic Category · KSh · 2015 to 2024

SOURCE: Kenya National Bureau of Statistics · Total Imports by Broad Economic Category (annual) · Updated 2026-08-26

#	category	level	parent	path	is_total	year	period_start	value	unit	status
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COLUMN	TYPE	DESCRIPTION	UNIT
category	string	The node's own name. Several repeat under different parents, so this is not a key on its own	-
level	string	total, category, component or sub_component. Summing value without filtering on this triple-counts	-
parent	string	The name of the node above, or empty for the total	-
path	string	The node's full ancestry joined by " > ". This is the key: `Primary`, `Processed`, `Other`, `For Industry` and `Parts and Accessories` each name more than one node	-
is_total	bool	True only for the single total row in each year	-
year	int64	Calendar year the goods were imported in	-
period_start	date	First day of that calendar year	-
value	float64	The figure as printed, in thousands of Kenya shillings	-
unit	string	Always ksh_thousand	-
status	string	final, or provisional for a year the source marks with an asterisk	-

CITATION · APA 7

imibare contributors. (2026). Total Imports by Broad Economic Category [Data set]. imibare. v2026-08-26. https://imibare.org/datasets/ke.knbs.imports-by-economic-category.annual