CAIRO — Egypt’s electricity ministry restored pre-war industrial-sector power delivery to its full pre-war cadence Sunday morning, closing an eight-week period of wartime grid curtailment that had imposed substantial operational costs on Egyptian manufacturers and on the country’s broader economic recovery from the war period.

The restoration, announced by Electricity Minister Mohamed Shaker in a Sunday-morning press conference at the ministry’s Cairo headquarters, completes the operational transition that had been underway since the late-April announcement that grid stabilization was permitting a phased return to normal industrial-sector delivery patterns. The full restoration arrives approximately two weeks ahead of the timeline that had been published in the ministry’s mid-April recovery plan.

The curtailment period had imposed substantial operational costs on the Egyptian industrial sector, with the largest manufacturers — including major textile, fertilizer, and cement producers — having operated at substantially reduced capacity factors through the curtailment window. The Egyptian Federation of Industries estimated in a Saturday-published assessment that the eight-week curtailment had reduced industrial-sector output by approximately fourteen percent relative to baseline planning assumptions and had increased operating costs by approximately seven percent due to inefficient operation at reduced capacity.

Shaker, in his Sunday-morning remarks, attributed the rapid restoration to a combination of accelerated maintenance work at the country’s principal thermal generating facilities, the resumption of Israeli gas imports following the ceasefire, and substantial demand-side moderation that had been encouraged through tariff structures during the curtailment period. The minister said the ministry’s medium-term planning would now focus on the broader grid-modernization program that had been deferred during the curtailment.

The Israeli gas-import resumption, which began in stages through April and reached pre-war volume levels in early May, has been a particularly important element of the restoration framework. The Eastern Mediterranean Gas pipeline, which connects Israeli production to Egyptian liquefaction facilities and to Egyptian domestic-market delivery, had operated at substantially reduced capacity during the war period due to a combination of operational-security concerns and physical disruption.

A senior Eastern Mediterranean Gas executive, contacted Sunday afternoon, said the pipeline’s operational performance had been “essentially restored to pre-war operating parameters” through April and early May. The executive noted that the pipeline’s medium-term operational outlook remained subject to the broader framework of Eastern Mediterranean energy-cooperation arrangements that the post-war regional negotiations are expected to shape.

The Egyptian government’s broader fiscal posture has been substantially affected by the war-period costs. The country’s budget deficit projection for the current fiscal year has been revised upward by approximately one-point-eight percent of GDP relative to the pre-war framework, reflecting the combined effect of reduced economic activity, increased social-protection spending, and the costs of grid-stabilization operations. The country’s IMF program has been adjusted accordingly through technical consultations conducted through April.

A senior IMF official, in a Sunday-afternoon briefing from Washington, said the fund’s program review for Egypt remained on schedule for the June Board consideration and that the program’s substantive content had been adjusted through the spring to reflect the war period’s operational and fiscal realities. The official noted that Egypt’s medium-term reform program remained “broadly on track” despite the war-period disruption.

The Egyptian small-business sector has been particularly affected by the curtailment period and the broader economic disruption. A senior official at the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce, in remarks delivered Sunday morning at a Cairo business event, said the federation’s member businesses had reported “substantial operational pressure” through the curtailment period and that the recovery would require additional government support beyond the grid restoration itself.

The government’s recovery package, announced in mid-April, includes approximately eighteen billion Egyptian pounds in small-business support through subsidized credit and operational-cost subsidies. The package’s implementation has been proceeding through the country’s principal banks, with the first disbursements completed in early May. The Federation has called for additional support measures, citing the magnitude of the war-period disruption.

The Egyptian Stock Exchange’s EGX 30 index closed Sunday at the highest level since early February, reflecting the broader market response to the grid restoration and to the broader post-war economic-recovery framework. The index has gained approximately twelve percent since the ceasefire announcement on April 15, recovering substantially from the wartime lows reached in late March.

A senior Egyptian Central Bank official, in remarks delivered Sunday afternoon, said the bank’s monetary-policy framework would “remain calibrated to the country’s economic-recovery trajectory” and indicated that the bank’s June Monetary Policy Committee meeting would assess the substantive evidence for adjusting the policy framework. The Egyptian pound has stabilized substantially against the U.S. dollar through April and early May after the volatile wartime trading pattern.

The broader regional energy-recovery framework remains under negotiation through the ongoing diplomatic process. The post-war regional energy-cooperation framework, which has been a focus of senior-official discussions between Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and the Gulf states through the spring, is expected to be substantively advanced during the upcoming OPEC-plus-adjacent consultations in Vienna in early June.

Egypt’s domestic-market gas-storage levels have been substantially rebuilt through the post-war period and are expected to reach the pre-war operating-baseline levels by the end of May, providing the country with the operational reserve capacity that had been depleted during the war-period disruption.