The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) has announced that monthly core consumer price index (CPI) inflation rose to 0.2 percent in December 2019, compared to 0.1 percent in November and to zero in the same month of 2019, while annual inflation doubled to 7.1 percent in December.

Accordingly, the CBE said in a statement, the annual core inflation rate reached 2.4 percent in December 2019, up from 2.1 percent in November 2019.

The monthly headline urban inflation rate, announced by the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) on 9 January 2020, recorded negative 0.2 percent in December 2019, compared to negative 0.3 percent in November, and to negative 3.4 percent in the same month of 2019.

The annual headline inflation rate recorded 7.1 percent in December 2019, compared to 3.6 percent in November 2019, coming in line with CBE expectations, reflecting a strong and unfavorable base effect stemming from the reversal of transitory shocks to prices of fresh vegetables in the previous year.