Egypt’s central bank to review key interest rates Thursday for first time in 2021

The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) is anticipated to hold its first meeting in 2020 on Thursday to review the key interest rates.

In its last meeting, held on 24 December, the MPC decided to keep the CBE’s key interest rates unchanged to stand at 8.25 percent, 9.25 percent, and 8.75 percent for overnight deposit rate, overnight lending rate, and the rate of the main operation, respectively.

The discount rate was also kept unchanged at 8.75 percent.

Observers diffrer in their expections on whether the CBE will maintain the current interest rates, especially given that neither the CBE nor the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) have announced their calculations for the annual and monthly headline inflation for January.

It is also unclear to some whether the CBE will introduce new cuts in interest rates with the expected rise in inflation rate or not.

During 2020, the CBE slashed interest rates by a total of 4 percent (400 bps) in response to the COVID-19 crisis and its associated impacts.