No intention to raise fuel prices in FY 2017/18: Minister

CAIRO – 03 July 2017: Egypt will not see any more increases in fuel prices in the current fiscal year 2017/18 that started on July 1, 2017 and will end on June 30, 2018, stated Minister of Finance Amr El-Garhy on Sunday.

Taking about energy subsidies, the minister highlighted that subsidies will be lift “gradually” in the next 3-5 years, in the light of the global markets’ circumstances, in a phone interview with Kol Youm program on ON E channel.

Garhy noted that the financial dues owed by the petroleum and electricity sectors to the foreign partners currently reach LE 900 million ($50 million).

Prices are expected to enhance in the coming months, Garhy added, explaining that each one Egyptian pound’s decline in the U.S. dollar exchange rate will save around LE 50 billion in the country’s expenditures.

The loss the country incurred from the energy subsidies during the period from 2002 to 2014 amounts to not less than LE 700 billion, according the minister.

The volume of Egypt’s primary deficit in the last six years reached LE 540 billion, as per the statistics of the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC), the minister said.
Primary deficit refers to the deficit minus interest payments on loans taken out to finance the operation of the government.