Cairo - Mubasher: The Egyptian manpower minister, Mohamed Saafan, announced a new EGP 150 million package to support around 140,000 regular workers in 1,200 institutions.

Saafan made the announcement during a video conference with the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva, according to a statement issued on Monday.

The manpower minister said that the support is in line with the Egyptian president's directives to the Employees Emergency Fund to disburse salaries to the regular workers, namely in the tourism sector, which is affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.

He added that Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi approved a monthly grant of EGP 500 to be provided to irregular workers, with 1.6 million workers who benefited from its first batch.

The minister further remarked that the president requested the Ministry of Finance to allocate EGP 100 billion to face the pandemic, decrease the prices of energy and natural gas, and postpone the credit repayments.