Central bank defies global expectations of Inflation in Egypt
ALBAWABA – Inflation in Egypt has declined to 30.6 percent in April, down from 32.7 percent in March, according to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics.
This is the first instance of annual inflation deceleration in Egypt since June, 2022, according to The New Arab, a credible Arab media outlet based in the United Kingdom.
But Egyptian news outlet, Cairo24, reportedly published a statement by the Central Bank of Egypt on April 10, saying that the inflation rate had in fact decelerated in March, 2023.
Inflation declined to 39.5 percent, last month, from 40.3 percent in February, Cairo24 reported.
On a monthly basis, Egypt’s inflation rate is still rising, but at lower rate, according to the statistics agency.
Inflation increased by 1.8 percent in April, compared to March this year.
In a statement carried by Reuters last month, the central bank Governor Hassan Abdallah said Egypt is aiming to reduce inflation to 7 percent by the fourth quarter of 2024.
Abdallah recently met with representatives of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) in Washington earlier this year for the Spring sessions.
During the meetings, Abdallah explained that the central bank has increased the interest rate by 10 percent over the year, Reuters reported.
According to a statement by Ivanna Hollar, head of the IMF’s delegation to Egypt, in January, inflation in Egypt is not expected to decline any time soon.
In a press conference held on Jan. 10, Hollar said that IMF expects inflation in Egypt to fall back to 7 percent in 2024/2025 fiscal year, but not before.
According to a recent WB’s research report on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Egypt’s gross domestic product (GDP) is predicted to increase by 4 percent in 2023 through 2025.
The IMF now expects the country's GDP growth to reach 3.7 percent in 2023, down from the 4.4 percent forecast in October, 2022, and the 4 percent forecast in January.
