Cairo, April 11 : Egypt's annual inflation reached a record high of 33.9 per cent in March, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) announced. During March, inflation rose by 3.2 per cent on a monthly basis, compared to February 2023, scoring 166.5 points, Xinhua news agency quoted CAPMAS as saying. It attributed the increase in inflation on a monthly basis during March to the increase in the food and beverage section by 5.3 per cent. In March, the country's Monetary Policy Committee decided to raise the interest rates of the Central Bank of Egypt by 200 basis points to contain high inflation. Egypt has been struggling to contain rising inflation over the past years, amid a shortage of foreign currency caused by the global economic repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict. /IANS