It’s official: French transportation outfit RATP Dev will operate the Salam City-Tenth of Ramadan electric train, after ministers gave the all-clear to the contract at the weekly cabinet meeting on Wednesday. Ministers authorized the National Authority for Tunnels to sign the contract, which will see RATP Dev — short for Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens — manage, operate, and do maintenance for the line, which is currently 72% complete.

Nine months until launch: The electric train is being built by the CREC-AVIC International Consortium (which includes China Railway Group Limited and Aviation Industry Corporation of China). The consortium was contracted for civil works back in 2019, and is working alongside a few Egyptian outfits including Orascom Construction. Transport Minister Kamel El Wazir said this month that the first two parts of the project, which run from Adly Mansour station to several areas of the new capital, will be inaugurated next October.

Also receiving cabinet sign off:

• Procedures to sign a contract with Siemens Gamesa for a project to generate 500 MW of wind energy in the Gulf of Suez as an independent power producer and sell electricity to the government at USD 0.03 per kWh;
• An agreement with the French Development Agency to support teaching French at public schools;
• A contract between the ICT Ministry and Microsoft to run a data center in the new administrative capital;
• A draft law to bring a state fund to support cotton cultivation under the Cotton Research Institute in a bid to improve produce quality; and
• A method to calculate payouts due to contractors working with the government under the 2017 Contractors Compensation Act.