Central Bank of Egypt leaves rates unchanged in November

Bank holds rates: At its meeting on 20 November, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) maintained its overnight deposit, overnight lending and main operations rates at 21.00%, 22.00% and 21.50%, respectively. Market analysts' forecasts had been split between a hold and a reduction. The hold followed a total of 625 basis points of reductions in April–October.

Bank shifts to a wait-and-see approach: Headline and core inflation rose in October, leading the Bank to state that it needs time to assess if interest rates are sufficiently high to bring down inflation to its target before reducing them further. Regarding the Bank’s forecasts, it expects inflation to rise in CY Q4 2025, before declining in CY H2 2026, in line with our Consensus. Regarding economic activity, the Bank expects real GDP growth to have increased to 5.2% in July–September 2025, suggesting the economy is moving closer to full capacity utilization and dissuading a rate cut.

Final CY 2025 rate cut on the table for December meeting: The Central Bank did not provide explicit forward guidance on future interest rate movements. Our Consensus is for the Bank to cut rates at its final meeting of the current calendar year on 25 December. Next calendar year, our panelists see further reductions, albeit less aggressive ones than this year’s.

How should you choose a forecaster if some are too optimistic while others are too pessimistic? FocusEconomics collects Egyptian interest rate projections for the next ten years from a panel of 7 analysts at the leading national, regional and global forecast institutions. These projections are then validated by our in-house team of economists and data analysts and averaged to provide one Consensus Forecast you can rely on for each indicator. By averaging all forecasts, upside and downside forecasting errors tend to cancel each other out, leading to the most reliable interest rate forecast available for Egyptian interest rate.

Download one of our sample reports to visualize what a Consensus Forecast is and see our Egyptian interest rate projections.

Want to get access to the full dataset of Egyptian interest rate forecasts? Send an email to info@focus-economics.com.