WORLD> Middle East
Egypt's inflation hits 16-year record high
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-08-11 16:44

CAIRO -- Egypt's urban inflation soared to 22 percent in the year to July mainly due to rising food prices, the highest since January 1992, The Egyptian Gazette reported Monday.

Prices in the country as a whole increased 23.1 percent in the same period from 21.1 percent in the year to May, according to the statistics issued on Sunday by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS).

Inflation in the countryside rose to 24.3 percent from 22.9 percent two months earlier, said the CAPMAS report.

The Egyptian government has taken a series of measures to curb the soaring prices that triggered protests this year in some areas of the populous country.

In a bid to deal with rising inflation, the Egyptian Central Bank raised its key interest rates by 50 basis points on Thursday, the fifth rise this year, to 11 percent for the overnight deposit rate and 13 percent for the lending rate.

In addition, the government has tried to overcome the inflation by providing more cheap food on a ration card system.

However, analyst said the inflation in Egypt could only be tackled with the stabilization of international prices.

Only a significant long-term decline in the prices of global commodities would help stabilize prices in Egypt, senior economist Reham el-Desouki was quoted as saying.