Egypt's annual core inflation records 3.7% in March: CBE

CAIRO – 8 April 2021: The annual core inflation rate recorded 3.7 percent in March 2021, compared to 3.6 percent in February 2021, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) said in a statement Thursday.

The Consumer Price Index in Egypt has recorded a monthly rate of 0.5 percent in March, compared to 0.4 percent for the same month last year, and to 0.3 percent in February 2021, the statement added.

Core inflation discounts or strips out certain categories that are considered more volatile.

Egypt’s annual consumer price inflation recorded 4.8 percent in March 2021, compared to 4.6 percent in March 2020, state-statistics body said Thursday.

On a monthly basis, inflation recorded 110.9 points in March 2021, compared to 110.3 points in February 2021, marking an increase of 0.6 percent, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) said.

CAPMAS attributed the slight increase in inflation to the hike in prices of some commodities during the month, as the fruits group by 7.1 percent, meat and pourtly group by 3.7 percent, oil and fats group by 0.9 percent, cereals and bread by 0.5 percent, in addition to the increase in the group of milk and white cheese by 0.5 percent.

The agency pointed out that this came despite the decrease in the prices of the readymade clothes group by 1.1 percent, and the transportation services group by 0.4 percent.

The sustainable development plan for 2020/2021 expected the inflation rate to increase to 9.8 percent if coronavirus crisis continued until December 2020.

Inflation remains within the Central Bank of Egypt’s (CBE) target range of 9 percent, plus or minus 3 percentage points, despite the precautionary measures taken aiming to curb the spread of coronavirus that are expected to raise the rate of inflation.

The Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) decided Thursday, March 18, to keep the overnight deposit rate, overnight lending rate, and the rate of the main operation unchanged at 8.25 percent, 9.25 percent, and 8.75 percent, respectively. Moreover, the discount rate was also kept at 8.75 percent.

Egypt's 2020/2021 draft budget aims to reduce public debt of GDP to 82.7 percent by end of June 2021, up from earlier target of 82.5 percent by the end of June 2020 and to 77.5 percent by the end of June 2022.