Egypt and China have signed a number of cooperation deals worth 18.3 billion US dollars. The two countries signed the deals during a just-concluded visit to China by Egypts President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who participated in the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) that commenced Monday. Among the deals: the construction of a pumping and storage station in the Mount Ataka area in the northeast of Egypt and a clean coal-fired power station in Hamrawein on the Red Sea coast, according to Egypt State Information Service. Also, Egypts foreign exchange reserves (forex) rose to 44.419 billion US dollars in August, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) said in a statement. "Egypts forex increased by 104 million dollars to reach 44.419 billion at the end of August," said the CBE. Reuters reported the head of research at Pharos Securities Brokerage, Radwa El Swaify saying that the stability of foreign monetary reserves in Egypt is a positive matter amid the crisis of the emerging markets and the exit of foreigners from these markets. Further, Egypt’s finance ministry said on Tuesday it canceled three and seven-year treasury bond sales, an auction that had had a total value of 3.5 billion Egyptian pounds (USD196 million). The tender was canceled on Monday because the interest rates required were “not within the logical limits." Egypt aims to reach an average interest rate on government debt instruments in the current 2018-2019 budget to about 14.7 percent compared to 18.5 percent in the fiscal year 2017-2018, which ended on June 30. Egypt’s funding needs in the 2018-2019 budget are about 714.637 billion pounds, of which 511.208 billion is in the form of domestic debt instruments and the rest are external financing from the issuance of bonds and the IMF loan.