CAIRO: Egypt on Saturday announced new hikes on fuel prices as part of austerity measures tied to an IMF loan as it seeks to cut subsidies and reduce its public debt.

The price hikes of between 35 and 50 percent were announced by Oil Minister Tarek el-Molla and go into effect immediately, state media reported. It follows a decision this week to further cut electricity subsidies and raise average prices by around a quarter as the most populous Arab nation moves forward in a sweeping economic reform programme. Egypt has imposed harsh austerity measures and started phasing out subsidies on many goods and services since November 2016, when the International Monetary Fund approved a three-year $12 billion loan.

Since then consumer prices have soared as the authorities floated Egypt’s currency and adopted a value-added tax. Egypt’s fiscal crisis saw its deficit balloon to 12.5 percent of GDP in the 2015-2016 tax year. The latest price hikes see the cost of widely-used 92 octane unleaded petrol rise by 35 percent, while diesel shoots up by 50 percent, according to figures published by state-run Al-Akhbar newspaper. Al-Ahram state newspaper said the price of gas canisters used in many households for cooking or heating would rise by 66 percent.