Egypt's urban inflation reaches its highest rate in 5-years at 25.8%
Egypt’s annual urban inflation rate rose to the highest level in more than five years during January 2023, driven by a series of currency devaluations since March 2022, a prolonged shortage of foreign currency and persistent delays in bringing imports into the country.
The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) announced Thursday that the annual urban inflation rate surged in January to 25.8 percent, compared to 21.3 percent in December.
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 26.5 percent in January 2023, compared to 8 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 2022, 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.
On a monthly basis, inflation recorded 150.6 points in January 2023, recording a 4.9 percent increase compared to December 2022, the CAPMAS said.