Egypt's annual core inflation records 21.5% in November: CBE

CAIRO – 8 December 2022: Egypt’s annual core inflation rate recorded 21.5 percent in November 2022, compared to 19 percent in October 2022, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) said in a statement Thursday.

 

The Consumer Price Index in Egypt has recorded a monthly rate of 2.7 percent in November, compared to 0.5 percent for the same month last year, and to 3 percent in October 2022, the statement added.

 

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

 

The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) announced earlier Thursday that Egypt’s annual urban inflation rate rose to the highest level in five years during November 2022, driven by the rise in food prices and the continued pressures resulting from the Russian-Ukrainian crisis.

 

The CAPMAS announced Thursday that the annual urban inflation rate surged in November to 18.7 percent, compared to 16.2 percent in October.

 

This is the highest level of inflation recorded in Egypt since December 2017, when it recorded 21.9 percent, a month after the Central Bank of Egypt, led by its former president Tarek Amer, liberalized the exchange rate of the pound in November 2017.

 

According to the state-statistic body’s data, the annual inflation rate rose to 19.2 percent in November 2022, compared to 6.2 percent in the same month of prior year.

 

Egypt is witnessing an inflationary wave that has been accelerating almost every month since the beginning of this year, as a result of the high costs of importing energy and food, due to the Russian-Ukrainian crisis, and the Corona epidemic crisis.

 

Egypt reached an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in November, worth $3 billion. It also devalued its currency twice, in March and late October, after an exit wave of hot money on the successor to the Ukraine crisis and the US interest rate hike on the dollar.

 

The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) stated earlier that the inflation is higher than the expected average rate of 7 percent (±2 percentage points) in the fourth quarter of 2022, announcing that the new inflation rate targets will be announced soon.