Egypt will hold a series of meetings with investors in the second week of November to promote its dollar-denominated Eurobonds of at least $3 billion, the country's finance minister Amr El-Garhy said in a Cairo conference on Monday.

El-Garhy said in the AmCham Egypt conference that he was observing Saudi Arabia's Eurobond issuance last week, as the oil-rich kingdom conducted its largest-ever emerging market bond sale, selling $17.5 billion of debt in the government's first international offer.

The Gulf country's order book totalled $67 billion.

In June, El-Garhy said that “we are studying a bond issuance of $3 billion in order to fill part of the budget's financing gap, which is expected to reach $10 billion.”

El-Garhy had previously said the bonds could reach up to $5 billion, depending on the investors' appetite for purchase.

In September, deputy finance minister Ahmed Kojak said the bonds could bring a yield of 6 to 6.5 percent.

Egypt has searched for a variety of funding sources, from development loans to foreign grants and aid, to plug its financing needs as it contends with an acute dollar shortage that has hampered its ability to purchase from abroad.