Cairo – Mubasher: The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) is expected to reduce key interest rates by 0.5% during its next meeting scheduled to be held on Thursday, 16 January, according to a recent report by MubasherTrade.

After floating exchange rate on 3 November 2016, the CBE increased interest rate by 7% over three times, then lowered interest rates by 6.5% over six times in the last two years.

The current overnight deposit and lending rates are set at 12.25% and 13.25%, respectively.

A new interest rate cut is needed to alleviate the burden of public debt as debt service payments accounted for 80% of government’s revenues during the first quarter of fiscal year 2019/2020, data released by the Egyptian Ministry of Finance showed.

Mubasher Research also expects the CBE to cut interest rates by 1% in the second half of FY19/20 and by 3% in FY20/21.