Egypt's annual inflation rate keeps climbing to 26% in January 2023 – CAPMAS

Egypt's annual urban consumer price inflation jumped to a higher-than-expected 25.8% in January, its fastest in more than five years, from 21.3% in December, data from statistics agency CAPMAS showed on Thursday.

The rise followed a series of currency devaluations starting in March 2022, a prolonged shortage of foreign currency, and continuing delays in getting imports into the country. The Egyptian pound has fallen by nearly 50% since March.

Economists had expected a reading of 23.75%, according to the median forecast in a Reuters poll of 14.

Five analysts had forecast that core inflation would climb to 26.6% from 24.4% in December.

The central bank is expected to release the January figure later on Thursday.

Headline inflation increased across the board, but was driven especially by higher prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages, which make up 32.7% of the index's basket, "as producers continued to pass through higher import bills to shoppers", said Allen Sandeep of Naeem Brokerage.