Oil Minister Tarek El Molla said the price rises would help Egypt save up to 50bn pounds ($2.8bn) in allocations for state subsidies in the 2018-19 state budget.
The price hike, the third since Egypt floated the pound currency in November 2016, is expected to pile more pressure on Egyptian consumers struggling to make ends meet amid high unemployment and rising prices.
The oil ministry said the price for 95 octane gasoline had been increased to 7.75 Egyptian pounds a litre from 6.60 pounds; 92 octane had been raised to 6.75 pounds a litre from 5 pounds and 80 octane had gone up to 5.50 pounds a litre from 3.65 pounds.
The ministry also raised the price for a canister of gas for Egyptian households to 50 pounds from 30, while a bottle of gas for commercial purposes was raised to 100 pounds from 60.
The government, under new Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly, also announced yesterday a hike in taxi fares by 10% to 20%.
Many Egyptians reacted angrily to the announcements.
“I pay 40% of my income on transportation,” said Mohamed Abed Rabbo, an employee in his 40s employed in a local company in Al-Qalyubia, north of Cairo. “Since the last price rise, I have been unable to support my wife and daughter without help from my family,” he added, his voice rising in anger.
In Minya province, south of Cairo, Iman Salah said that only in Egypt did employees spend half of their salary on transportation and the other half on electricity, water and internet. “What do we need to do?” she wondered. “May God have mercy upon us.”
Halfway into a three-year, $12bn International Monetary Fund loan programme signed in late 2016 which is tied to the austerity measures, Egypt hopes painful reforms such as tax hikes and subsidy cuts will lure back foreign investors and kick-start an economy that crashed after its 2011 Arab Spring uprising.
IMF first deputy managing director David Lipton told government officials in May that Egypt would have to deepen reforms and better encourage private sector growth if it wants to cash in on a wave of global expansion.
The IMF-backed austerity programme carries risks for President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a former army general who was elected for a second term in March.
Al-Sisi, who came to power after the army ousted former president Mohamed Mursi following mass protests against his rule, has overseen a crackdown on vocal critics he sees as trying to derail his reforms.
Mass protests in Jordan earlier this month over government plans to hike taxes had raised speculation among some Egyptians that Cairo may delay the planned fuel price increases, which were ordered by outgoing Prime Minister Sherif Ismail before al-Sisi replaced him last week.