Mohamed Saad El-din, chairperson of the Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) Investors Association and a member of the Federation of Egyptian Industries’ board of directors, has demanded the government permanently remove gas and energy subsidies for factories, as well as unify the prices for everyone without discrimination between the production sectors.
In a press statement on Wednesday, Saad El-din explained that the government has to direct subsidies towards production rather than raw materials. If the state wants to support a specific industry, such as steel or fertilisers, it should not do so through reducing the prices of gas, but rather through cash support for the industry itself, based on production, according to Saad El-din.
He claimed that there is a crisis that is wasting the state’s wealth. It is that a major percentage of the sectors that receive subsidised energy and gas use them for purposes other than the purpose of supporting industry, he said. As a result, he added, there is different pricing for gas and weak supervision on the gas and energy black market.
He pointed out that unifying the price of gas and eliminating subsidies will achieve social equality in terms of distribution of wealth. It will also reveal for the state the strategic industries that are worth the subsidies.
