Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi held a meeting with officials on Sunday to follow up the work progress in implementing the fourth phase of the third line of the Underground Metro. The meeting was attended by Prime Minister Mostafa Madboly, Transport Minister Hesham Arafat and the Head of the Armed Forces Engineering Authority Kamel El- Wazeer, said presidential spokesman Bassam Rady Egypt's started drilling operations on the third phase of the Cairo metro's heavily-commuted third line in May, which is planned to extend more than 17 km and include 15 stations. The European Investment Bank (EIB) and the French Development Agency (AFD) are co-financing the phase three building project with a soft loan of 900 million euros, or about 60 percent of its execution cost, while the rest of the cost is being provided by Egypt's state budget. The new phase will aim to provide service to three million additional passengers daily. The Cairo metro, which operates throughout the capital city and surrounding areas and runs both above and below ground at a top speed of 80 kilometres an hour, is one of the area's fastest means of transportation. First launched in 1987, the metro accommodates more than four million passengers per day. Cairo's first metro line is now 30 years old and in dire need of EGP 30 billion in renovations, according to officials. On 11 May, the flat-rate of EGP 2 per ticket was increased to EGP 3, 5, or 7 depending on the number of stops a passenger travels.
