CAIRO, May 14 (Aswat Masriya) - Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi stressed on Thursday the importance of hard work and effort exerted by officials to reach the desired development rates.

Sisi spoke during the launch of a number of armed forces factories.

"Egypt will only move forward with the work ... of every official at the state's institutions," Sisi said.

Since taking up post in June 2014, Sisi's administration has largely focused on fixing Egypt's battered economy, which has been suffering due to four years of political turmoil since an uprising toppled former president Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

Egypt's gross domestic product (GDP) reached its highest growth since 2008 during the first quarter of the current fiscal year, standing at 6.8 percent, the central bank announced in January. The bank had then owed the unprecedented growth to tourism and manufacturing.

Egypt's GDP is expected to grow by 3 percent during the second half of the fiscal year 2014/2015, slowing down from 5.6 percent during the first half, the planning minister said on Wednesday.

Minister Ashraf al-Arabi said that Egypt is targeting a GDP growth of 6 percent in the period between the fiscal year 2015/2016 and the fiscal year 2018/2019, reported MENA.