Daylight saving time in Egypt
On 20 April 2015, The Egyptian Government decided not apply summer time this year following a poll that has been held in April 2015 regarding applying DST or not. The government decided to make the necessary amendment to the laws and asked the ministers to work on a study to determine the probability of applying Daylight Saving time in coming years or not.[1] The ministry of electricity assured that the achieved electricity savings from applying summer time is not of any tangible effect.[2]
On 16 May 2014, summer time was observed in Egypt with an exception for the holy month of Ramadan.[3]
History
The British first instituted summer time in Egypt, during the Second World War, specifically between 1940 and 1945. The practice was stopped after the war, but resumed 12 years later, in 1957.
Egypt normally observed summer time between the last Friday in April and the last Thursday in September when the clocks were three hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (UTC+3). The change occurred one second after 23:59:59 on Thursday to become 1:00:00 on the last Friday in April shortening the day to 23 hours. Summer time ended one second after 23:59:59 to become 23:00:00 on the last Thursday of September lengthening the day to 25 hours. The date did not change one second after the first 23:59:59 occurred; for all practical purposes, midnight did not occur until after the second 23:59:59.
An exception was made for Ramadan; in 2006 the end of summer time took place one week earlier, on 21 September 2006, which took place before the start of the holy month of Ramadan. The same practice recurred in 2007 and 2008, to avoid having longer days in Ramadan.
In 2009, summer time ended on Thursday, 20 August, five weeks before the nominal end on the last Thursday in September. In 2010, the summer time started on 30 April, and ended on 30 September, but between 10 August and 10 September, summer time was cancelled because of Ramadan.
The previous government was planning to take a decision to abolish it in 2011 before the January 25 Revolution. The transitional government abolished summer time on 20 April 2011.[4]
On 7 May 2014, the Egyptian government decided to use summer time starting on 16 May 2014 with an exception for the holy month of Ramadan.[3] The reintroduction of summer time was under the pretext that it would save energy. See Dispute over benefits and drawbacks of summer time.
