HC believes a 200 bps rate hike is necessary to absorb the current pressures

HC believes a 200 bps rate hike is necessary to absorb the current pressures

HC Securities & Investment shared their expectations on the likely outcome of the MPC meeting scheduled September 22nd. Based on Egypt’s current situation, they expect the CBE to gradually raise the overnight deposit and lending rates by 100 bps in the coming meeting and then raise it by another 100 bps in the following meeting.

Financials analyst and economist at HC, Heba Monir commented: “The annual August inflation is the highest recorded since May 2019, as the pricing of imported commodities at a higher exchange rate and supply bottlenecks negatively impacted it. At these levels, the annual inflation rate is well above the CBE's pre-announced target of 7% (+/-2% for 4Q22), and we estimate it to average 14.3% until year-end. Furthermore, a few days ago, the Egyptian government decided to amend the natural gas pricing formula for nitrogen fertilizers producers, which should translate into higher crop prices and inflation rates. Regarding Egypt's external position, we believe that pressure is accumulating given (1) our FY21/22e current account deficit estimate of 4.8% of GDP, up from 4.6% a year earlier, (2) July remittances declining c15% m-o-m and y-o-y to USD2.38bn, (3) the banking sector's (excluding the CBE) net foreign liability position reaching USD10.1bn