CAIRO, Jun 18 (Aswat Masriya) - Egypt's cabinet approved on Thursday a draft of the state budget for the new fiscal year 2015/2016, with a deficit of 9.9 percent of the gross domestic product.

The draft expected growth to rise to 5 percent, the cabinet said in a statement, as opposed to an expected 4.2 percent in the current fiscal year, which elapses at the end of this month.

The draft awaits the president's approval.

This year's budget was approved by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi last June, after revising it to decrease the budget deficit.

The government had drafted a budget for the 2014/15 fiscal year, which expected the deficit to stand at 292 billion pounds, making up 12 percent of GDP. It was amended to an expected 240 billion pound deficit, or 10 percent of GDP.

Sisi's administration has largely focused on fixing Egypt's battered economy, which has been suffering badly due to four years of political turmoil since an uprising toppled former President Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

The government reduced petroleum subsidies and introduced new taxes last July, hiking fuel prices by up to 78 percent.