Egypt Standard Time
Egypt Standard Time (Arabic: توقيت مصر القياسي tawqīt Miṣr al-qiyāsiyy) is UTC+02:00, which is exactly the same as Eastern European Time, Central Africa Time and South African Standard Time, and is co-linear with neighboring Libya and Sudan. Egypt has previously used Eastern European Summer Time (UTC+03:00), during the summer periods from 1957–2010 and 2014–15.
History
On 21 April 2011, the interim government abolished summer time. The standard time was used the whole year round, with no change in summer.
On 7 May 2014, the Egyptian interim government decided to use summer time starting from 15 May 2014, the third Friday of May, with an exception for the holy month of Ramadan. This just comes before the Egyptian presidential elections were expected to start.[1]
On 20 April 2015, The Egyptian government decided not apply summer time this year following a poll that had 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.[2] The ministry of electricity assured that the achieved electricity saving from applying summer time is not of any tangible effect.[3]
On 29 April 2016, the government under Prime Minister Sherif Ismail decided to use summer time again (UTC+03:00) by July 7. It was to begin after Ramadan and last until the end of October. However, it was cancelled on July 4 following a vote by the Egyptian Parliament on June 28 to abolish DST, and to comply with the April 2015 presidential decree to refrain from introducing DST.
Time zone changes
Period in use | Time offset from GMT | Name of time zone |
---|---|---|
Prior to 1900 | UTC+02:05:09 | Local mean time |
1900–1939 | UTC+02:00 | Eastern European Time |
15 July 1940 – 1 November 1945 | UTC+02:00 UTC+03:00 |
Eastern European Time Eastern European Summer Time |
1946–1957 | UTC+02:00 | Eastern European Time |
10 May 1957 – 19 April 2011 | UTC+02:00 UTC+03:00 |
Eastern European Time Eastern European Summer Time |
20 April 2011 – 15 May 2014 | UTC+02:00 | Eastern European Time |
16 May 2014 – 19 April 2015 | UTC+02:00 UTC+03:00 |
Eastern European Time Eastern European Summer Time |
20 April 2015 – present | UTC+02:00 | Eastern European Time |
IANA time zone database
The IANA time zone database contains one zone for Egypt in the file zone.tab.
coordinates* | TZ* | Standard time | Summer time |
---|---|---|---|
+3003+03115 | Africa/Cairo | UTC+02:00 | not observed |
See also
References
External links
- Al-Ahram: Daylight savings time in Egypt postponed to July
- Al-Ahram: Egypt's government to re-apply daylight saving time
- Almasry Alyoum: Egypt to cancel daylight saving time
- Time and Date.com: Egypt Abolishes Daylight Saving Time
- Time and Date.com: Egypt re-introduces Daylight Saving Time