Egypt’s C.bank keeps interest rates unchanged in 2023 last meeting – Updated

Egypt’s C.bank keeps interest rates unchanged in 2023 last meeting – Updated

Cairo – Mubasher: The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) decided on 21 December 2023 to maintain the rates of overnight deposit and lending at 19.25% and 20.25%, respectively.

The CBE also kept the main operation rate unchanged at 19.75% and the discount rate at 19.75%, signalling the last MPC meeting of 2023, according to official data.

Egypt’s financial regulator noted that “the current policy rates remain appropriate at this juncture,” adding that the MPC “will continue assessing the cumulative impact of previously enacted tightening policies and its transmission to the economy in a data-driven manner.”

Future policy rates, however, would be determined based on forecast inflation rather than prevailing inflation rates.

As for the coming decisions, “The committee will not hesitate to utilise all its available tools to ensure that the policy stance is set at sufficiently restrictive levels to preserve the decelerating trend of underlying inflation.”

However, tight monetary stance is set to steer the future path of annual inflation rates towards the CBE’s next target levels while safeguarding price stability in the medium term.

The MPC elaborated on the unchanged rates decision by saying that global economic growth has eased, with its outlook revised downwards when compared with