Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and visiting Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz have finalized a contract for a $16-billion investment fund among several other bilateral accords.

The document was inked on Saturday, the third day of an unusually long visit by the 80-year-old Saudi monarch to Egypt.

The visit and the fund contract apparently reflect the extent of the Saudi support for Egypt’s former army chief, who engineered a coup against the country’s first democratically elected president Mohammed Morsi in July 2013 and rose to presidency in June 2014.

Saudi Arabia has remained a key supporter and chief financier of Egypt’s troubled economy under the Sisi administration.




Since his arrival in Egypt on Thursday, King Salman and his entourage of senior Saudi officials have announced a string of investments in Egypt, as well as a massive plan to construct a bridge over the Red Sea to connect the two Arab nations.

Moreover, on the third day of the Saudi ruler’s five-day tour of Egypt on Saturday, Salman and Sisi attended the signing ceremony for a number of other deals intended to further boost Egypt’s battered economy at the historic Abdeen Palace in Cairo.

More than a dozen other accords, including a memorandum of understanding to set up an industrial zone in Egypt, were also unveiled during the meeting.