CAIRO: The Central Bank of Egypt has attributed the rising inflation volume as a result of an increase in food prices led by high prices of poultry and rice. The inflation rate, according to the Central Bank, recorded a monthly rate of 0.32 percent during June at the time when the price of paid services and consumer goods remained stable, while the annual rate of core inflation has stabilized at 6.70 percent compared to 6.69 percent during the previous month, the Central Bank reported. A statement issued by the Central Bank on Thursday on the rates of inflation during June, said that the volume of inflation in June rose by 0.50 percent during the month of June, “where still the increase is less than the monthly average achieved in 2009 (1.1 percent), and the annual rate of inflation, increased slightly to 10.66 percent compared to 10.59 percent in May.” According to the central Bank, Egypt witnessed an increase in fees for summer trips organized by government agencies at a rate of 14.2 percent, while prices of vegetables and fruit recorded a monthly increase of up to 0.97 percent to make the 0.14 percent of the monthly rate of inflation and “is an increase much less of the average monthly increase recorded during the period between January and October of last year, which amounted to 6.9 percent at that time.” The central Bank noted higher prices for poultry by 2.3 percent in June, and has risen more than 16 percent since the beginning of the year, while the price of rice also increased by 7.6 percent and is the second monthly increase since July 2009. This comes at a time when red meat prices remained unchanged after a slight increase, which amounted to 0.33 percent in May of this year, which the bank said “led to the stability of the cumulative rise in the prices of red meat since the beginning of the year at 13.14 percent.” It noted a decline in fish and seafood, slightly up by 0.83 percent from the previous month, having remained unchanged during the month of May, and prices of dry beans stayed constant for the third consecutive month, leading to a cumulative decline of 10 percent since the beginning of 2010. BM
