The official exchange rate of the US dollar on the Egyptian market registered EGP 30.24 for buying and EGP 30.33 for selling at the end of today’s transactions, up from 30.16 and 30.25 respectively on Wednesday.

The Egyptian pound traded on Sunday at 29.9 but has been slipping since then as the country battles rising inflation and a shortage in foreign currency sparked by the global economic crisis.

The EGP slides come after Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly stressed on Monday the government’s commitment to permanently move to the flexible exchange rate regime under the country’s new International Monetary Fund programme.

Since March last year, the Egyptian pound lost almost 50 percent of its value against the US dollar.

The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) decided in its Thursday meeting to keep the current key interest rates unchanged despite a rise in inflation to 21.9 percent in December 2022, up from 19.2 percent a month earlier.