Egypt has increased the selling price of natural gas for the industrial sector to $5.75 per million thermal units for high consuming industries, an increase of 27.8 percent, and $4.75 for other industries, an increase of 5.6 percent, according to the official gazette.
The government has previously reduced the natural gas price to $4.5 as part of measures meant to support economic growth.
The high consuming industries mentioned in the official gazette announcement are cement, iron and steel, and fertilizers.
In other news, Egypt’s central bank kept its key interest rates unchanged during its monetary policy committee (MPC) meeting on Thursday, the bank said in a statement.
The committee has kept the overnight lending rate at 9.25 percent and the overnight deposit rate at 8.25 percent since November, their lowest since July 2014.
All but one of 18 analysts polled by Reuters believed the bank would keep rates on hold at its regular monetary policy committee meeting, as it strives to attract portfolio investment while tamping down inflation.
“The MPC decided that keeping policy rates unchanged remains consistent with achieving the inflation target of seven percent (+/- 2 percentage points) on average... and price stability over the medium term.”
Annual urban consumer inflation climbed to 6.6 percent in September, its highest since January 2020, from 5.7 percent in August. Last month’s figure nevertheless remains well within the target range of five to nine percent set by the central bank.
Egypt’s economy appears to be bouncing back from the worst of the coronavirus pandemic, with gross domestic product growing by 7.7 percent in the quarter to the end of June compared with a contraction of 1.7 percent in the same quarter last year, according to government data.
