The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) announced that its Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) decided to cut interest rates by 1%, Invest-Gate reports.

CBE’s overnight deposit rate, overnight lending rate, and the rate of the main operation declined by 100 basis points to 15.75%, 16.75%, and 16.25%, respectively, according to an official statement on February 14.

The discount rate was lowered by 100 basis points to 16.25%, the CBE added in the statement.

This comes after the CBE’s first inflation target of 13%  (±3 percent) for the fourth quarter 2018 that was announced in May 2017 has been achieved.

“Headline and core inflation rose to 12.7% and 8.6% in January 2019, respectively, due to unfavorable base effects. This comes after headline inflation declined to 12.0 percent in December 2018 due to the reversal of the transitory supply shock related to select vegetables,” according to the statement.