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The
agreements are tabled to be signed on Thursday during a visit to
Cairo by Saudi Arabia's King Salman, a rare foreign trip.
Saudi Arabia, along with other Gulf oil producers, has pumped
billions of dollars into Egypt's flagging economy since the army
toppled President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in
2013 after mass protests against his rule.
The Gulf Arab countries see the Muslim Brotherhood as a threat.
Egypt is struggling to revive an economy which unraveled
following an uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak in
2011.
The development deal for Sinai comes at a time when Cairo is
fighting an Islamist militant insurgency there and discontent
and poverty among the population there is rife, residents say.
The petroleum financing will have an interest rate of 2 percent
and a grace period of at least three years, the sources said.
Separately, the deputy head of the Saudi-Egyptian Business
Council said on Tuesday that Saudi businessmen will invest a
total of $4 billion in projects including the Suez Canal, energy
and agriculture, and had already deposited 10 percent of that
sum in Egyptian banks.
(Writing by Asma Alsharif; Editing by Michael Georgy and Raissa
Kasolowsky)
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