Egypt’s central bank discusses interest rates with 1-2% hike expectations – Egypt Today

Egypt’s central bank discusses interest rates with 1-2% hike expectations – Egypt Today

CAIRO - 22 December 2022: The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) holds a meeting on Thursday, Dec. 22, to discuss the interest rates.

Most of the expectations of economists and investment banks point to the Central Bank's direction for a new hike by about 100 points to 200 points, compared to a slight weighting in the direction of keeping the rates on hold.

The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) announced earlier that Egypt’s annual urban inflation rate rose to the highest level in five years during November 2022, driven by the rise in food prices and the continued pressures resulting from the Russian-Ukrainian crisis.

The CAPMAS announced that the annual urban inflation rate surged in November to 18.7 percent, compared to 16.2 percent in October.

This is the highest level of inflation recorded in Egypt since December 2017, when it recorded 21.9 percent, a month after the Central Bank of Egypt, led by its former president Tarek Amer, liberalized the exchange rate of the pound in November 2017.

According to the state-statistic body’s data, the annual inflation rate rose to 19.2 percent in November 2022, compared to 6.2 percent in the same month of prior year.

Egypt