By Sherif Serag The government estimated that the total budget for the Egyptian Railway Authority (ERA) for the 2012-2013 fiscal year will be EGP 10.8bn and that the deficit will approximately be EGP 1.2bn. Total expenditures will be approximately EGP 5.2bn, compared to EGP 4bn in revenues. Hany Hegab, President of the ERA, predicted that revenues would increase in the current fiscal year. The ERA will also take in income from merchandise, rent from malls at the Ramses and Sidi Gaber stations totalling EGP 50m, and rent from land owned by the Authority, which equals approximately 190 million square meters. The ERA is planning to invest in a number of improvements to the railway system by adding 584 new cars to the existing fleet, with 212 air conditioned units to be manufactured by the company. The ERA will also spend EGP 150m to add 116 French cars in the current SIMAF fiscal year. In addition, the ERA will develop 200 kilometres in new railway tracks on the Aswan-Cairo line and will replace the mechanical railways signals on the Banha-Alexandria and Beni Suef-Alexandria lines with new electronic systems. An EGP 2.7 billion World Bank loan will fund the improvements. The ERA will also complete the first stage of an EGP 400 million project to build new rail crossings in the coming December, which will add 245 crossings to the existing 1261.
