In a media statement to Sada El-Balad TV channel’s “My responsibility” news talk show, Saad said that the government will apply the system starting next year or next summer stressing that it is important in saving energy and electricity consumption.

Earlier Tuesday, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly revealed the government’s plan to reduce and rationalise energy and water consumption nationwide amid the global energy crisis.

According to PM Madbouly, the government is rationalising energy in order to save natural gas to redirect it for exporting and increase Egypt’s sources of foreign currency during the global energy crisis.

Cabinet spokesperson Nader Saad stated that daylight-saving time is already applied in 74 countries around the world including the European countries and the United States of America.

He also revealed that Egypt would not apply the daylight-saving time this year as summer has already started and that there should be prior notice to international organisations and institutions such as aviation.

Daylight-saving time is not an alien system in Egypt as it was applied and then cancelled several times before.

First implemented in the country in 1988, the system was introduced as a power-saving measure prolonging daylight hours.

It was abolished in April 2011 after the uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak, with the government arguing at the time that the practice was ineffective at curbing power usage.

The system was temporarily revived in May 2014 in order to ease consumption after the country saw rolling power blackouts.

It was cancelled again in July 2016.

Egypt is normally two hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) — meaning it was three hours ahead when daylight saving time was applied.