Mark your calendars: Egypt's daylight-saving time is coming to an end next week

CAIRO – 25 October 2024: On Friday, 1 November, at the stroke of midnight across Egypt, it is time to turn back the clock and give Thursday an extra hour of life as we bid adieu to daylight-saving time, which has been in play since April.

In a move aimed at cutting down power usage, Egypt reintroduced daylight-saving time in 2023 after a seven-year hiatus. The question of whether this actually makes a dent in electricity consumption is up for debate.

The Cabinet earlier stated that applying daylight-saving time helps save around 10% of energy. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives pointed to studies in 2016 suggesting that the impact on energy savings is minimal and can mess with people's internal clocks.

The idea behind daylight-saving time is not just about tweaking clocks; it is also about reducing fuel imports, which weigh heavily on the Egyptian economy and foreign currency reserves.

Egypt has been working hard to bolster its foreign reserves and hold onto its hard-earned currency, especially in light of the ongoing regional crises.

The Red Sea tensions that coincided with the Israeli war in Gaza, ongoing since October 2023, has caused the Suez Canal to suffer a loss of more than 50-60% of its income, surpassing $6 billion, over the past 7-8 months, according to President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi last month.

To conserve energy, Egypt rolled out a load-shedding program in the summer of 2023, but thankfully managed to wrap it up a year later once the necessary fuel supplies were secured.

As the clocks change, take a breather and catch up on your Zs to bridge the gap between your body clock (which follows the sun) and your social clock (dictated by society).

And while your clock winds back by an hour, do not forget that your work routine and appointments will likely stick to their usual schedule.

Do not fret about adjusting your laptop and mobile phone clocks; in most cases, they will update automatically.