CAIRO - Egypt is earning about $500 million monthly from natural gas exports and aims to raise that figure to $1 billion "in the coming period," Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said in a statement on Thursday.

The statement, based on comments by Maait at a Bloomberg forum, gave no comparative figures on what Egypt had been earning previously.

Egypt has been pushing to maximise its exports of natural gas to generate foreign currency revenue after coming under financial pressure due to the impact of the war in Ukraine.

Egypt exported 8.9 billion cubic metres (bcm) of liquefied natural gas (LNG) last year and 4.7 bcm in the first five months of 2022, according to Refinitiv Eikon data.

The government says gas exports have been boosted after the it introduced an electricity rationing plan in August.

(Reporting by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Josie Kao)