Egypt's annual inflation steadies at 4.8% during February, rises 0.1% monthly

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Wed, 10 Mar 2021 - 11:16 GMT

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Wed, 10 Mar 2021 - 11:16 GMT

Food market- Photo courtesy of IFAD Facebook page

Food market- Photo courtesy of IFAD Facebook page

CAIRO – 10 March 2021: Egypt’s annual consumer price inflation stabilized at 4.9 percent in February 2021, marking the same rate of February 2020, state-statistics body said Wednesday. 

 

In January, inflation hit 4.8 percent, compared to 6.8 percent in the same month of prior year.

 

On a monthly basis, inflation recorded 110.3 points in February 2021, marking an increase of 0.1 percent compared to January 2021, 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  smoke group by 1.6 percent, rental housing group by 0.4 percent, and the ready meals group by 0.2 percent.

 

 

The agency pointed out that this came despite the decrease in the prices of the vegetables group by 2.5 percent, the regular tourist trip group by 2 percent, newspapers, books and stationery by 1.6percent, and ready-made clothes by 1.1 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, Feb. 4, 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.

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