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Join on Telegram Rabat- With Ramadan approaching, Morocco will suspend the daylight savings time and revert to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), on Sunday, May 13.
Sunday, May 13 at 3:00 a.m, Moroccans will switch their clocks 60 minutes back to GMT, said the Ministry in Charge of Reform Administration and Public Service in a statement.
The country suspends daylight savings time exclusively for the month of Ramadan because it affects the fasting time; afterwards, the kingdom returns to GMT+1. The time change comes in accordance with the Decree N 2-12-126 issued on Jumada I, 1433 (April 18, 2012).
Morocco switched to the daylight savings time on Sunday, March 25.
Daylight savings has been adopted in Morocco since 2008 to increase the competitiveness of the national economy through reducing energy consumption and time difference between the kingdom and its regional and international trading partners, such as France.
However, going back and forth in time does not appeal to many Moroccans who voice their displeasure with the measure and question its effectiveness.
The measure has been under review since late February by the European Parliament (EP). Across the 28 member states of the EP, 384 deputies out of 549 voted in favor of the resolution.
Previously in 2015, a group of Moroccan citizens launched a petition, urging the government to consider ending the daylight savings due to the negative impacts it brings on health.
A study conducted by EU Parliament in October 2017 stated: “While daylight-savings time benefits the transport industry, helps outdoor leisure activities, and reduces energy consumption, it is associated with disruptions to the human biorhythm.”
The origins of daylight savings date back to the First World War in the UK, where it was adopted to give factories more daylight hours to support war efforts.
