A number of ministers have inspected the new offices, Madbouly said at a meeting to follow up on work progress in the NAC on Thursday, offering assurances that the government will start gradually moving there as previously scheduled by the end of December.

Construction on the new 700-square-kilometre capital, located 60km from Cairo in the area between the Cairo-Suez and Cairo-Ain Sokhna Roads, started in 2015, with the aim of creating a new home to various public agencies, universities and business headquarters.

The city is set to house 6.5 million people when completed.

Madbouly ordered certain streets and roads be designated for the movement of employees and visitors to the government area in order to avoid conflict with active construction sites, the cabinet said in a statement released following the meeting.

In November, President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi ordered the cabinet to start relocating public employees to the NAC's government district for a 6-month experimental phase starting December.

The government had planned to relocate ministries and 52,300 government employees to the new capital by mid-2020, but the coronavirus pandemic forced it to delay the move.

The government district comprises 10 ministerial complexes that will house 34 ministries, in addition to the headquarters of the cabinet and the House of Representatives.

The new capital will be connected to the Greater Cairo area via various transport network systems that include the country's first monorail train.