Egypt's official annual headline inflation rate leaped to 31.9 percent in February from 25.8 percent in January, its highest in five and a half years, according to official data published by statistics agency CAPMAS on Thursday. The government, meanwhile, has declared that the state is ready to provide new "support packages” to the people. The soaring inflation follows a series of currency devaluations starting in March 2022, a prolonged shortage of foreign currency, and a continuing backlog of getting imports out of ports. The Egyptian pound has fallen by nearly 50 percent since March 2022. Economists had expected a reading of 26.7 percent, according to the median forecast in a Reuters poll of 14. Six analysts had forecast February core inflation of 32.85 percent. Mounting inflation could put pressure on the central bank's Monetary Policy Committee to raise interest rates when it next meets on March 30. At its last meeting on Feb. 2, the central bank kept its lending rate at 17.25 percent and the deposit rate at 16.25 percent, saying its hikes of 800 basis points over the last year should help to tame inflation. Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said that the recently announced social support package by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is “the biggest in the history of the country”. Sisi urged at the beginning of this month the government to prepare a package to raise state and private wages and pensions, starting from April, by a minimum of 1,000 Egyptian pounds, as well as a 15 percent increase in pensions, and increasing the tax exemption allowance on annual income to 30,000 pounds from 24,000 pounds.