Egypt reports inflation rises to highest level in 5 years

Egypt’s Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics announced Thursday that annual urban consumer price inflation has reached its highest level in more than 5 years.

Inflation rose to 25.8% year on year in January from 21.3% in December last year.

The 14 analysts’ median forecast was that annual inflation was 23.75% in January, compared to 21.3% in December, the highest since December 2017.

Egypt’s headline inflation continued to rise in January after jumping to a five-year high in December, with prices continuing to rise after the Egyptian pound depreciated several times over the past ten months.

The overall consumer price index for the whole country in January 2023 reached 150.6 points, recording an increase of 4.9% compared to December 2022.

The central body of public mobilization and statistics called the most important reasons for this growth the rise in prices for cereals and bread group by 6.6%, meat and poultry by 20.6%, fish and seafood by 9.4%, dairy, cheese and egg group by 10.3%, oil and fat group by 7.8%, fruit group by 3.8%.

The annual inflation rate for the whole country in January 2023 amounted to 26.5% compared to 8.0% for the same month of the previous year.

Source: agencies