Egypt’s annual headline inflation rate recorded 7.2% in January 2020, compared to 7.1% in December 2019, Invest-Gate reports.

Monthly headline urban inflation recorded 0.7% in January 2020 compared to 0.6% in the same month a year earlier, according to a statement by the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) on February 10.

This was driven by “seasonal factors and changing household consumption,” Allen Sandeep, director of research at Naeem Holding, told Enterprise. “The surge in monthly inflation is reflective of annual process revisions that are usually timed in January by traders and wholesalers and a slight adjustment to household consumption patterns,” he added.

Additionally, the annual core inflation rate reached 2.7% in January 2020, compared to 2.4% in December 2019. The monthly core inflation stood at 0.7% in January 2020, compared to 0.4% in the same month of 2019 and to 0.2% in December 2019.

In December 2019, the annual headline inflation rate rose to 7.1%, compared to 3.6% in November of the same year. The monthly inflation fell 0.2% in December 2019 compared to a decline of 0.3% in November 2019 and 3.4% in December 2018, according to a statement by the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) on January 16.