2nd LD: Egypt's parliament approves 9-minister cabinet reshuffle

The Egyptian parliament approved on Tuesday a 9-minister cabinet reshuffle in economic and service sectors, including the merge of two ministries into one, the Egyptian state TV reported.

The reshuffle involves new chiefs for the ministries of agriculture, parliamentary affairs, supplies, local development, planning, education, higher education, transport and newly-merged investment and international relations.

Sahar Nasr, who already leads the ministry of international relations, is now in charge of the investment ministry as well, while Ali Moselhy, who has been in charge of the parliament's economic committee, is approved as the new supplies minister.

The other seven new ministers include Abdel-Moneim al-Banna as agriculture minister, Hala Younis as planning minister, Mohamed Hesham al-Sherif as local development minister, Omar al-Khattab Arafa as parliamentary affairs minister, Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar as higher education minister, Tarek Shawky as education minister and Hesham Arafat as transport minister.

Besides Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, Egypt's cabinet which had 34 ministers turned into 33 after the new merge. The reshuffle is the second within a year, as the previous one took place in March 2016 and involved 10 new ministers.

Egypt has been suffering economic recession that led the country to adopt a three-year strict economic reform program, assisted by a 12-billion dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund, including austerity measures, subsidy cuts and local currency floatation, which all resulted in overwhelming price hikes in the most populous Arab state. Endit