Egypt Daily News – Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said on Tuesday that the state has “no way” but to adjust the prices of some services provided to citizens. Madbouly added, during his statements following the first cabinet meeting of his new formation: “We will move within a year and a half on prices to fill the existing gap.”
Madbouly indicated that electricity and fuel prices will be moved “with small to large differences so that the state can continue to achieve economic sustainability.” The Prime Minister said that moving drug prices will be based on precise calculations, and there is a plan to move some medicines carefully from now until the end of the year, to ensure that there is no shortage of medicines.
He said that the two most important problems for citizens are electricity and controlling prices, which are a top priority for the government and all its cadres, pointing out that the government worked to provide goods, especially food, to reduce prices.
He stressed that the government has a clear vision regarding internal and external debt, noting that external debt has decreased, and this is accompanied by the investments that entered Egypt during the last period. Madbouly added that the state has developed a number of worst-case scenarios, especially in light of the circumstances occurring in the region.
In a letter of intent signed in November 2022, Egypt said it would raise the prices of most fuel products to bring them closer to prices in international energy markets.
Egypt raised the prices of a wide range of fuel products last March. It issued a decision that took effect on June 1 to increase the price of a loaf of subsidized bread for the first time in decades.
Since last summer, Egypt has been suffering from a crisis in electricity production, which prompted the Ministry of Petroleum to take a decision to stop exports of liquefied natural gas as of May 2024.
The Egyptian government has been cutting off electricity regularly for a year, due to an energy crisis accompanied by a scarcity of foreign currencies, which led to the unavailability of the fuel needed to operate power plants.
On March 6, Egypt lowered the exchange rate to about 50 pounds to the dollar from the level of 31 pounds, near which it had stabilized for nearly a year. The pound has gradually risen since then.
