Alya Moubayed, chief economist for the Middle East and North Africa at investment bank Jefferies, ruled out the possibility of the Central Bank of Egypt cutting interest rates until inflation falls below 10% to maintain the attractiveness of the local debt market to investors compared to other emerging markets. Moubayed told Asharq that she expects the central bank to keep the real interest rate—the difference between interest rates and inflation—positive at around 4% because foreign inflows "remain a crucial source of financing for Egypt's large current account deficit."The projections reflect the challenge facing Egyptian authorities in managing the financing needs of their energy import bill, which has risen significantly since the start of the Iran war due to Israel's temporary disruption of natural gas supplies to Egypt and the sharp decline in global oil and gas supplies following the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.The turning point was regional tensions, which prompted the central bank to keep interest rates unchanged at 19% after cutting them by 500 basis points in the months preceding the conflict. Conversely, rising energy prices and the depreciation of the pound at the start of the war accelerated inflation to 15.2%, before declining to 14.6% in May. This means the real interest rate is currently around 4%.