President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has appointed Hassan Abdallah as acting governor of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE), as per a presidential decree released on Thursday, August 18. The decision comes a day after President Al-Sisi accepted the resignation of former governor Tarek Amer, who had been in office since 2015 but has now been appointed a presidential advisor, on Wednesday August 17. Abdullah’s appointment also preceded the CBE’s fifth Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting of the year Thursday afternoon, where the committee reviewed the country’s current interest rates and kept them unchanged for the second time in a row. Interest rates therefore remain at 11.25 percent for overnight deposit, 12.25 percent for overnight lending, and 11.75 percent for main operation. Al-Sisi met the newly-selected interim Abduallah, to whom he stressed the importance of developing monetary policies which can keep in line with the ongoing global developments and provide an attractive investment climate, Al-Ahram reports. Abdallah has been chairman of the Board of Members of Egypt’s largest media conglomerate, United Media Services (UMS) since last year. UMS’ media outlets include networks such as ON TV, Al-Hayah, DMC, and CBC, as…
