The Central Bank of Egypt’s decision to leave interest rates unchanged dominated the airwaves over the weekend. We have the full story in this morning’s news well, above.

Who’s celebrating? Unchanged rates is good news for the state budget, seeing as every rate hike comes bearing massive costs — a 100 bps increase in rates could cost the state some EGP 30 bn, banking expert Sahar El Damaty told Yahduth Fi Masr (watch, runtime: 5:12).

Who’s not? Banks. Faced with stricter reserve requirements, commercial lenders could raise their lending rates in efforts to make up some of the lost cash, economist Hany Genena told El Hekaya’s Amr Adib (watch, runtime: 4:00). This means higher borrowing costs for the businesses, public sector bodies and individuals that have taken out loans. Banks could start issuing certificates of deposit (CDs) at competitive rates in efforts to pull EGP liquidity into the banking system, El Damaty told Kelma Akhira’s Lamees El Hadidi (watch, runtime: 7:15). Banks could also start revising downward their forecasted income or increasing their fees for certain services, as they work to find methods to make up for this lost income.

There’s no end in sight to the import crisis, Elsewedy Electric CEO Ahmed El Sewedy told Adib (watch, runtime: 6:14).The CBE’s new rules for facilitating FX for imports have little to no impact on the import restrictions, he said, adding as long as there is no USD in the country, it will remain difficult to import materials and components essential for production. “It’s all about the availability of the USD in the country.” If the situation continues as is, factories will start to shut operations and people will lose their jobs. Mohamed Al Bahi, board member at the Federation of Egyptian Industries, also weighed in on the matter (watch, runtime: 6:15).