The Egyptian cabinet has approved a plan to ration electricity usage in an effort to reduce natural gas consumption and increase the amount available to export. Egypt aims to boost natural gas exports in order to generate more foreign currency.

According to the draft bill, commercial buildings including shops and malls will have to limit the use of strong lights and avoid setting air conditioning temperatures to below 25 degrees Celsius. Ministries and government facilities will also be cutting down their electricity consumption, a cabinet statement revealed.

Since the start of the Russian/Ukraine conflict, Egypt has had to deal with a foreign currency shortage due to accelerating global commodity prices and increased cost of borrowing.

Ministries and government facilities will have to turn off lighting at the end of working hours, the statement added. Street lighting will also be reduced.

With rising inflation, the government delayed its annual increase of electricity prices in July by 6 months to support citizens.

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said the government was looking to reduce how much natural gas was used to generate electricity by 15%. He said domestic power plants bought their natural gas at one-tenth the price that it could fetch on international markets.

Egypt exported 9.45 million cubic meters of liquid natural gas in the first seven months of 2022, up 44% from a year earlier, according to Refinitiv data.