The Egyptian government has approved the budget for fiscal year 2018-19, aiming at GDP growth of 5.8 percent, Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said on Sunday, according to a cabinet statement. The new budget includes investments worth EGP 100 million, up from EGP 70 billion this year, to be spent on national projects and public services, the prime minister said.

Egypt s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi stressed over a phone call with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Monday that efforts towards Palestinian reconciliation should move forward, Egyptian presidency spokesperson Bassam Rady said in a statement. El-Sisi told his counterpart that it is necessary to "work on containing any disagreements and to overcome all difficulties that hinder these efforts, in order to achieve the unity and the interests of the brotherly Palestinian people," the statement reads.

Egyptian expats headed to embassies and consulates around the world on Sunday to vote in the third and final day of polling abroad in the country s presidential elections, one week before polling stations open back home. President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and Moussa Mostafa Moussa, the head of Ghad Party, are the two candidates on the ballot in the 2018 presidential elections.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will visit Egypt on Monday to discuss issues of common interest between the two countries during a bilateral summit with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. In a statement to Al-Masry Al-Youm on Saturday, Sudan’s ambassador to Egypt Abdel Mohamoud Abdel al-Halim said that Bashir’s one-day-visit to Cairo comes within the framework of continuous communication between the two leaderships to follow up on the discussions held during a recent meeting between the presidents in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

Egypt s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and his Emirati counterpart Abdallah Ben Zayed Al-Nahian stressed in a joint press conference Sunday in Cairo that there are no developments concerning the issue of Qatar, unless the Qatari government would change its policies. "One of the challenges before the region is the expansion of extremism and terrorism. One of the platforms of terrorism is Qatar," Ben Zayed said.

Egypt s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi honoured on Thursday the memory of a number of military and police martyrs and their families, saying he is ready to fight in person alongside heroes from the Egyptian Armed Forces and the police in battle. The president s statements came during the Armed Forces 27th intellectual seminar.

The countdown for Egyptian expats voting in the 2018 presidential elections has begun as the voting process is set to kick off on Friday March 16 and will last until Sunday March 18. Egyptians in 124 countries will be able to vote in a total of 139 polling stations. The voting will take place at the consulates headquarters along with several diplomatic missions set by the National Electoral Commission (NEC). Eligible voters are those whose names are registered in the voters database. They can vote using either their national ID cards or passports with the ID numbers identified.

Egypt s shift to renewable energy has helped create many job opportunities, experts say, with the industry expected to grow further over the next few years. “Renewable energy is more job-intensive compared to traditional energy projects,” said Axel Ceglie-Swoboda, chief technical officer of Solar Al-Shams Company for New and Renewable Energies, which operates in Egypt.

Official Spokesperson of Armed Forces Tamer al-Refai stated on Tuesday that Egyptian-French naval forces carried out a joint exercise in the Red Sea as part of the continuation of the military cooperation between the two countries’ armed forces. Refai added that the exercise witnessed the participation of Egypt’s newly-acquired French-made-helicopter carrier Mistral in addition to several Egyptian-French frigates and rocket launchers.

Egypt s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shoukry met on Tuesday with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, where they discussed boosting bilateral relations and issues relating to the Nile Basin, ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid said in a statement. Shoukry delivered an invitation from Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi for Kenyatta to visit Egypt. El-Sisi stressed Egypt s keenness to boost relations between the two countries, and Kenyatta expressed his gratitude for Egypt s support during Kenya s recent political crisis.

Egypt’s Transport Minister Hisham Arafat said on Monday that Egypt is in the process of launching a new high-speed railway linking the Mediterranean and the Red Sea with the participation of more than 10 international companies. The contract for this high-speed railway is due to be awarded by the second half of this year, Arafat said at Middle East Rail conference being held at Dubai, UAE, between March 12 and 13.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry met with South Sudan s President Salva Kirr in Juba, South Sudan, on Monday, delivering a message from Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi aimed at boosting bilateral cooperation, the Egyptian foreign ministry said in a press statement. South Sudan is the first stop in Shoukry s tour of Africa that started on Monday. While in Juba, he will visit the South Sudanese presidential palace, signing a memo to establish a mechanism for political consultation, the ministry said.

The Cairo Court for Urgent Matters scheduled April 10 as the date for the first hearing into a lawsuit urging the closure of Cairo’s BBC office, and the revoking its licence to operate in Egypt, state-news Al-Ahram reported on Sunday. Lawyer Mohamed Hamed Salem filed the lawsuit claiming that the BBC broadcasts false news with the aim of undermining the stability of Egypt and defaming Egypt’s reputation in the field of human rights. This comes after a recent BBC report entitled ‘The shadow over Egypt’, which addresses the country’s human rights conditions and alleged torture.

Egypt s foreign minister Sameh Shoukry is set to start an African tour on Monday, where he will fly to South Sudan and Kenya in a visit that aims to boost bilateral cooperation and discuss a number of regional matters, ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid said. In South Sudan, Shoukry and the country s President Silva Kiir will sign a bilateral political consultation mechanism memo. Shoukry will also meet with several top South Sudanese officials, including Kiir s presidential advisor Nhial Deng, and will engage in talks with the national dialogue committee, which Egypt is keen on supporting.

Egyptian presidential spokesperson Bassam Rady said on Saturday that the government aims to reduce the total budget deficit to about 9.5-9.7 percent of GDP in the current 2017/2018 fiscal year compared to 10.9 percent of GDP in the previous year. Rady made the remarks following a meeting between President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, Finance Minister Amr al-Garhy, Deputy Finance Minister for Treasury Mohamad Moait, and Deputy Finance Minister for Fiscal Policies Ahmed Kouchouk.

Egypt s acting intelligence chief Abbas Kamel met on Saturday with Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir in Khartoum, where they discussed the importance of communication between the two countries, Sudan News Agency (SUNA) reported. Earlier on Saturday, Kamel met with his Sudanese counterpart Salah Abdullah Mohamed Saleh, Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour, and Minister of Defence Awad Mohamed Ahmed bin Awaf. They discussed boosting bilateral relations, especially in the field of security.

A Cairo criminal court has dismissed a corruption case against Mubarak-era steel tycoon Ahmed Ezz and the former head of the industrial development authority Amr Assal, removing their names from travel ban list, after the pair reached a financial settlement with the state. The men had been charged with squandering EGP 660 million of public funds in the case, known in the Egyptian media as the “steel licences case.”

Egypt has dismissed as "baseless allegations" the UN s human rights chief criticism of the political climate in Egypt in the run-up to this month s presidential elections. Zeid Ra ad Al Hussein, the high commissioner of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said Wednesday there was a "pervasive climate of intimidation" in Egypt ahead of the vote, marked by arrests, "silencing" of independent media and torture in detention.

Production is set to begin at BP s Fayoum and Giza gas fields before the end of the year, according to a petroleum ministry statement. The fields are expected to produce 500-700 million cubic feet of gas per day.

Egypt’s Education Ministry declared that the days of the upcoming presidential election will be official ‘off-days’ for all school students in Egypt, to encourage ministry employees to participate in the voting process. The country’s presidential election will be held from March 26-28. On January 19, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi formally announced he would run for a second and final term. A runoff, if necessary, will take place on April 19-21 April for voters outside the country, and from April 24-26 April within the country.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia have signed an agreement allotting 1,000 square kilometres of land in South Sinai for a megacity project as part of the kingdom s mammoth NEOM project, Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman said on Monday evening during a meeting with several Egyptian media figures in Cairo. Prominent Egyptian TV presenter Lamis El-Hadeedi said on the privately owned CBC satellite channel that Bin Salman spoke about “everything,” answering questions on democracy and reforms in the kingdom, NEOM, Jerusalem, Israel and Qatar.