Egypt looked past a pick-up in inflation to keep interest rates unchanged for a second month, with the central bank’s next bout of monetary tightening likely hinging on the country’s ability to secure the foreign exchange needed to manage another currency devaluation, Bloomberg News reported. The Monetary Policy Committee on Thursday maintained the deposit rate at 18.25% and the lending rate at 19.25%, in a decision that matched the forecasts of most economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

Egypt's cabinet has approved a draft law to eliminate tax exemptions for state entities in a bid to attract private investment, a cabinet statement said on Wednesday, but the law appeared to retain at least some privileges enjoyed by the army, Reuters reported. Egypt, in the midst of a severe foreign currency shortage, has been seeking to encourage both foreigners and Egyptians to invest more. Many investors have hesitated out of concern that state-owned enterprises, including those owned by the army, use tax exemptions and other privileges to compete unfairly.

Tunisia's central bank held its key interest rate unchanged at 8%, it announced on Friday, saying that keeping the interest rate at the current level will continue to push inflation downward, Reuters reported. In December, the bank raised the key interest rate by 75 basis points to 8% to combat high inflation, marking its third rate hike last year. The annual inflation rate eased to 9.6% in May from 10.1% in April, and a high of 10.4% in February. "The current monetary trends would contribute to pushing down inflation rates during the coming period", the bank said in statement.

Days after welcoming Secretary of State Antony Blinken as part of efforts to reset relations with the US, Saudi Arabia turned its attention to boosting ties with one of Washington’s main competitors: China, Bloomberg News reported. For the past two days, the Saudi capital has played host to the largest ever Chinese-Arab business gathering. Under the chandeliers and vaulted ceilings of Riyadh’s grandest conference hall, Saudi officials spoke of integrating China into the Arab region and Chinese executives said they stood ready to “de-Americanize” the world’s top oil exporter.

Egyptian inflation accelerated after a monthlong respite, as a round of price increases by authorities fans pressures already building following three currency devaluations, Bloomberg News reported. Consumer prices in urban parts of Egypt climbed an annual 32.7% in May from 30.6% the previous month, according to a statement Saturday from the state-run statistics agency CAPMAS. Food and beverage costs, the largest single component of the inflation basket, rose 60%.

All five members of the Bank of Israel's monetary policy committee voted on May 22 to raise the benchmark interest rate by 0.25 percentage points to 4.75%, minutes of the discussion showed on Monday, Reuters reported. "The committee members noted that economic activity in Israel is at a high level, and is accompanied by a tight labour market, although there is some moderation in a number of indicators. Inflation is broad and remains high," the minutes said. Read more.

The United Arab Emirates' highest court Tuesday ordered a British hedge fund trader convicted of orchestrating a $1.7 billion tax fraud to pay that amount to Denmark's tax authority, the Associated Press reported. Financier Sanjay Shah was convicted in a lower court of masterminding a scheme that ran from 2012 to 2015. Under it, foreign businesses pretended to own shares in Danish companies and claimed tax refunds for which they were not eligible. He was arrested in Dubai last year.

Lebanon’s embattled central bank governor failed to appear before French prosecutors on Tuesday to be questioned on corruption charges, officials said, the Associated Press reported. A European judicial team from France, Germany and Luxembourg is conducting a corruption probe into an array of financial crimes, including illicit enrichment and alleged laundering of $330 million, implicating the Lebanese governor, Riad Salameh. Salameh, who has held his post for almost 30 years, has repeatedly denied all allegations against him.

A European judicial team questioned Lebanon’s caretaker finance minister on Friday in an investigation related to corruption probes of the country’s Central Bank governor, officials said, the Associated Press reported. The questioning is part of a probe by a delegation from France, Germany, and Luxembourg, now on its third visit to Lebanon to interrogate suspects and witnesses in the case. Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh is being investigated abroad over several financial crimes and the laundering of some $330 million.