Egypt’s Parliament approved an amendment to law 147/1984 on the imposition of “state financial resources development fee” on some commodities and services, during a plenary session on Monday.
Minister of Finance Mohamed Moeit had requested reintroducing Item 24 of Article 2 of the aforementioned law that has been previously omitted by the parliament’s budget and planning committee, which imposes a development fee on some commodities, mainly fuel, products free-trade zones, contracts of Egyptian and foreign football players, and mobile phones.
According to the amendment, a EGP 0.30 development fee per petrol liter and a EGP 0.25 fee per diesel liter will be imposed.
Parliament Speaker Ali Abdel Aal asked Moeit if this would result in an increase in the prices of petrol and diesel. The minister stressed that there will be no increase in fuel prices, as the determined amount will be collected from the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation’s proceeds and will be used to finance the emergency package the government has announced earlier.
The Parliament also approved the presidential decree 168/2020 to extend the state of emergency nationwide for further three months, starting on 28 April.
The state of emergency came as a necessary measure to face the security and health conditions that Egypt is going through in the current stage in light of Covid-19 outbreak.
On 10 April 2017, the Egyptian parliament approved imposing a state of emergency for the first time to fight terrorism after attacks on two churches that killed dozens of people.
