Kenya secures $600 mln Chinese loan to support budget: IMF envoy

Visitors are silhouetted against the logo of the International Monetary Fund at the main venue for the IMF and World Bank annual meeting in Tokyo October 10, 2012. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya's government has secured a $600 million loan from China to support the budget, the representative of the International Monetary Fund to Kenya said on Thursday. "They expect the money in the next two weeks," the IMF's Armando Morales told Reuters, adding that government officials had informed him that the deal had been finalised. He did not give further details. A senior Treasury official said in April that the loan would help fund the deficit for the year ending June 30. The deficit for 2015/16 is expected to be 7.9 percent of gross domestic product, down from the 8.7 percent originally forecast. (Reporting by Duncan Miriri; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Mark Heinrich)