Cabinet greenlights minimum wage hike to EGP 2.7k: Cabinet approved a decision to increase the monthly minimum wage for state employees across all salary bands by EGP 300, bringing the public-sector overall minimum wage to EGP 2.7k, according to a cabinet statement. Ministers approved the wage hike — the second in two years for the public sector — as part of a basket of measures announced in January to give incentives to public workers, including extending annual 7% bonuses first brought in last year, and hikes to pensions.

Teacher hiring campaign approved: Cabinet also approved spending EGP 1.8 bn to hire 30k new teachers in the coming 2022-2023 fiscal year, as part of a five-year plan to hire 150k teachers in total. Another EGP 1.8 bn was earmarked to hire 30k doctors and nurses.

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Lending electricity to our first green hydrogen plant? Cabinet will study the possibility of providing the country’s first green hydrogen plant with electricity to help get it up and running, on the condition that the plant returns an equivalent amount of electricity once it starts operating, according to a statement. The 100 MW Ain Sokhna facility is being built by a consortium of Orascom Construction, Norway’s Scatec, Nassif Sawiris-backed Fertiglobe, and the Sovereign Fund of Egypt. It is expected to come online in 2024. The companies requested the electricity — which the statement said would come from renewable sources connected to the national grid — to help expedite construction with the aim of getting the plant up and running by the COP27 summit in November, the statement read.

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No subsidies for those who build illegally on public land: Authorities will revoke bread and other food subsidies to those found guilty of illegally building on agricultural land, PM Mostafa Madbouly said during the cabinet’s latest meeting. The move comes as the government continues to crack down on illegal building on arable land, at least 90k feddans of which have been lost in the last decade due to encroachment alone.