Egypt central bank deploys AI tools to track inflation, map informal economy: governor

Egypt’s central bank has rolled out artificial intelligence-powered tools to monitor inflation and estimate the size of its vast informal economy as part of efforts to modernise monetary policy-making, Governor Hassan Abdalla said on Thursday.

Speaking at the 9th Annual Conference of Mediterranean Central Banks in Cairo, Abdalla said the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) was using machine learning models to produce real-time GDP forecasts and a high-powered consumer price index (CPI) tracker that compiles daily inflation data from web-scraped prices.

“We have also developed advanced models to quantify Egypt’s informal economy and advanced supervisory technology forms to enable smarter, data-driven supervision,” Abdalla said.

He warned that while artificial intelligence brings “significant benefits, it also poses risks to financial stability and integrity,” adding that regulators must set clear frameworks for its responsible adoption.

Egypt has faced persistent inflationary pressures since early 2022, with annual headline inflation peaking at double-digit levels amid currency depreciation and rising import costs, before averaging 15.7 per cent between January and July, about half the level recorded in the same period of 2024.

Attribution: Amwal Al Ghad English