Egypt's Central Bank raised interest rates by 1.5 percentage points on Thursday to combat inflation following a sharp currency devaluation and the adoption of a more flexible exchange rate regime earlier this week.

The Central Bank of Egypt devalued the pound from 7.83 to 8.95 against the dollar on Monday, marking the first devaluation under current governor Tarek Amer.

Egypt’s largest public lender, the National Bank of Egypt (NBE), has received a $700 million (EGP 5.5 billion) loan from the China Development Bank to finance infrastructure projects in different sectors, state news agency MENA reported on Thursday, citing the bank’s deputy Mahmoud Montasser.

Egypt's central bank left its key rates unchanged but said "potential underlying domestic inflationary pressures remain a concern" despite the mitigation of upside risks to inflation from the broad-based decline in international commodity prices.