CBE: Commodities Increase Monthly Inflation Rate By 0.67%

Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) attributed the 0.67% general inflation increase to the increase in food prices including poultry, vegetables, eggs and fruits as well as gas pipes prices. Annual inflation rate retreated to 0.52%. In addition, clothes prices declined, while services prices are stable.

CBE released recently a report showing an increase in administratively-determined commodities prices by 0.50% in February raising monthly general inflation rate by 0.1 percentage point. These changes came as a result of the increase in gas pipes prices by 15.38%, making the cumulative increase since January 2011 reaches 129.26%

Fresh vegetables prices rose by 2.19%, registering a cumulative increase of 5.76% for the past two months. Fresh fruits prices also increased by 2.18% after a cumulative decrease of 20.75% for the past 18 months, raising monthly general inflation rate by 0.20 percentage points in February.

Poultry prices increased by 9.43% in February, registering the highest monthly increase rate since August 2010. Accordingly, cumulative increase rate for the past three months reached 16.11%, while the average monthly rate registered 0.62% in 2011 as a result of the Foot and mouth disease which inflected animals, making poultry prices increase by 0.38 percentage point.

Eggs prices increased by 4.43%, raising inflation rate by 0.07%. Consumer commodities’ prices declined by 0.61%. Gold prices slightly retreated. Clothes prices decreased by 2.58%. Accordingly, consumer commodities prices registered -0.08 percentage point in monthly general inflation rate.