Cairo – Mubasher: The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) decided in its meeting on Thursday to cut the current interest rates for the fourth time in 2019.

The Overnight deposit rate and the overnight lending rate were lowered by 100 basis points to 12.25% and 13.25%, respectively, while the rate of the main operation was reduced to 12.75%.

The discount rate declined to 12.75%, according to a report released by the CBE.

Annual headline inflation levelled down to 4.8% in September 2019 and to 3.1% in October 2019 which is the lowest rate in around fourteen years.

“The decline was driven by lower annual food inflation, supported by favourable base effects stemming from the transitory shock to prices of fresh vegetables in the previous year, while annual non-food inflation inched up in October 2019 due to relatively higher services prices,” the CBE commented.

Real GDP growth stabilised at 5.6% during the third quarter of 2019, while the unemployment rate decreased to 7.5 in Q2-19.

“The reduction of policy rates in today’s and in previous meetings of the MPC provide appropriate support to economic activity while remaining consistent with achieving the inflation target of 9% in 2020 Q4 and price stability over the medium-term,” CBE said.