Egypt will raise electricity and gasoline prices in May, says minister

Egypt’s minister of planning and international cooperation Ashraf Al-Arabi said in an interview with Reuters that gasoline and electricity prices will be raised before the presidential elections in May because the country “has no time to waste”.

Al-Arabi added that raising gasoline prices will take place “very soon”.

According to Reuters, Al-Arabi’s statements indicate that Egypt is for the first time in years “on the same page with the International Monetary Fund, which has long urged the country to push through structural reforms, such as gradually reducing costly subsidies.”

“We don’t have time to waste. … It’s better for Egypt to start some of these measures at least before the presidential election, just to pave the way for the coming president, to make his life easier,” Al-Arabi told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of an IMF-World bank meeting in Washington.