Egypt’s central bank holds interest rates for fifth straight month amid global price spike

The Monetary Policy Committee of Egypt’s central bank (CBE) on Thursday kept key interest rates unchanged for the fifth consecutive month.

The MPC committee held its deposit rate at 8.25 percent and its lending rate at 9.25 percent, the fifth consecutive month it left them unchanged.
Global economic activity is recovering, albeit unevenly across sectors and countries, and supportive financial conditions are likely to continue globally in the medium term, the central bank’s MPC committee explained in a statement.
The statement highlighted the rise in global prices of oil, food and other primary commodities as supply struggled to keep up with surging demand.
Egypt’s annual general urban inflation rate surged to 4.8 percent in May from 4.1 percent in April.
The Egyptian central bank, which has a target inflation rate of 7 percent, plus or minus 2 percent, through the fourth quarter of 2022, expects inflation to continue to reflect base effects from 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic suppressed prices.