CAIRO: Egypt's Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) issued on Wednesday its monthly bulletin on inflation, reporting that monthly inflation recorded a decline to 1.1 percent in October compared to 1.8 percent in September. The country's overall inflation rate was at 11.1 percent, CAPMAS reported. CAPMAS said in a statement that the cause of the declining rate of change in the monthly total inflation of the country during the month of October was “due to the decline in the food and beverages prices sector in most groups, especially rice, poultry, fruit, fish and seafood, milk, cheese and eggs, and some types of vegetables.” Egyptians have long complained of poor wages and the continued high cost of food prices in the country. The majority of Egyptians live on less than $2 per day and soaring inflation has left many families struggling to make ends meet. The agency noted that high increase in the divisions of education, restaurants and hotels, particularly ready-made meals, was behind the 1.1 percent average change in the total monthly inflation. It revealed that the monthly change in prices of some commodities registered varying rises of the total such as rice at 1.7 percent during the month of October compared to the previous month, meat and poultry at 0.6 percent, fish and seafood 4.1 percent, milk, cheese and eggs at 3.6 percent, oils and fats 0.6 percent, fruits 7.3 percent, vegetables 6.3 percent, sugar and sugary foods 1.7 percent. Other products, the report said remained constant or had very little change. A statement by CAPMAS said the average monthly change in consumer prices, “inflation” in rural Egypt scored a 0.7 percent rise, while in urban centers the rate was slightly higher at 1.4 percent. BM
