RIYADH: Egypt’s core Consumer Price Index surged to 11.9 percent in April compared to 10.1 percent in March 2022 — putting it at its highest level since February 2018, according to data released by the Central Bank of Egypt. The core CPI exceeded analysts’ forecast in a Bloomberg poll of 11 percent for April 2022. This increase came in line with the Egypt CPI figure that came out on Tuesday that also increased from 10.5 percent year-on-year in March to 13.1 percent in April. The central bank’s data also showed a decrease in the core CPI on a month-on-month basis to 2.4 percent in April 2022 from 3.1 percent in the previous month. This decrease was not in line, however, with the month-on-month increase in the country’s urban CPI that increased from 2.2 percent in March to 3.3 percent in April 2022. The core CPI is a variant of the consumer price index that excludes the impact of temporary price shocks on inflation, which could result for various reasons including weather conditions, supply disruptions or infrequent resetting of prices by the government. The two inflation indices that directly drive Egypt’s core CPI are the prices of items that are regulated by the government, and prices of food and vegetables.