CAIRO (Reuters) -Egypt’s annual urban consumer price inflation in May fell to 28.1% from 32.5% in April, slowing faster than analysts had expected, data from statistics agency CAPMAS showed on Monday.
Inflation was expected to fall to 30.4%, a median forecast from a poll of 19 analysts showed, continuing a slowing trend since a September peak of 38.0%. Food prices in May were 31.0% higher than in May 2023.
Egypt’s core inflation, which excludes fuel and some volatile food items, eased to 27.1% year on year in May from 31.8% in April, central bank data showed on Monday.
May marked a third straight month of decline since a surprise surge in prices in February.
Month on month, prices in May fell by 0.7% while food prices dropped by 3.0%.
Inflation has been elevated for the past year, driven largely by rapid growth in the money supply.
(Reporting by Nadine Awadalla in Dubai; writing by Tala Ramadan and Patrick Werr; editing by Clarence Fernandez and Jason Neely)
