Egypt's Export Development Fund (EDF) disbursed LE1.5 billion to promote exports in the first half of the current fiscal year, EDF Executive Manager Abdel-Rahman Abdel-Raouf told state news agency MENA on Wednesday.

During the period in question, 1,772 Egyptian companies received assistance from the fund, leading to the realisation of some $4.1 billion worth of exports by those companies, said Abdel-Raouf. This figure included $1.08 billion realised by 220 Egyptian ready-made garments exporters.

The 97 export companies in the engineering sector performed second best, with exports totalling some $657 million. The 681 companies in Egypt's agricultural sector that received assistance from the EDF, meanwhile, exported $535 million worth of agricultural produce in the same period.

Furniture exports by 75 companies amounted to $361 million for the period, while 76 textiles companies succeeded in exporting some $276 million worth of goods.

Exports of plastics and other chemicals totalled $246 million, medical supplies exports came to $86 million, and cosmetics exports amounted to $52 million for the period.

Abdel-Raouf pointed out that small- and medium-sized enterprises had accounted for 60 percent of the companies that benefited from the EDF's assistance.

In a related development on Wednesday, Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade Hatem Saleh announced that the ministry had finalised new regulations governing the EDF's export promotion activities.

In the 2011/12 fiscal year, Egypt recorded a $31.7 billion trade deficit, during which total national exports totalled $27 billion.