Egypt central bank keeps interest rates ‘on hold’ in October

Egypt’s central bank (CBE) decided to keep interest rates unchanged after the bank’s Monetary Policy Committee met Thursday.

The bank kept the overnight deposit rate, the overnight lending rate and the rate of the CBE’s main operation at 8.75 percent, 9.75 percent, and 9.25 percent respectively.

Two economists out of five surveyed by Ahram Online expected interest rates to remain unchanged in the last meeting in the tenure of CBE governor Hisham Ramez, who is to be replaced by deputy governor Tarek Amer when his term ends on 26 November.

The Central Bank is more likely to wait till year-end before raising interest rates as the Federal Reserve is expected to have its first interest rate hike since 2008, Ziad Waleed, an economist at Cairo-based Beltone Financial, told Ahram Online in a telephone interview.

In a press release, the bank cited slowing inflation and improved growth rates for making its decision.

Egypt’s core inflation remained almost unchanged at 5.55 percent at the end of September while real GDP grew by 3 percent in the third quarter of  2014/15 Q3 to record 4.6 percent in the first nine months of the fiscal year, read the release.

Source: Ahram Online