In November, President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi ordered the cabinet to start relocating public employees to the government district in the new capital in December for a 6-month experimental phase.

Construction on the 700-square-kilometre new capital, located 60km from Cairo in the area between the Cairo-Suez and Cairo-Ain Sokhna roads, started in 2015 and is set to house 6.5 million people when completed.

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 city boasts a 360 feddan government district with 10 ministerial complexes that will house 34 ministries, in addition to the headquarters of the cabinet and the House of Representatives.

In a November statement, the cabinet made it clear that the transfer of state employees to the new capital will be implemented gradually, and that government offices that deal directly with the public will not be transferred to the new capital for the time being.

Today’s weekly cabinet meeting is scheduled to discuss the major projects inaugurated or set to be inaugurated soon in Upper Egypt, according to reports.

El-Sisi inaugurated on Wednesday a major complex for producing benzene at the Assiut Petroleum Refining Company in addition to several development projects in Upper Egypt.

In a speech during the inauguration, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said the government has pumped investments worth EGP 1.1 trillion into projects to develop Upper Egypt’s governorates, with a successful implementation rate of 96 percent.