CAIRO, Jul 2 (Aswat Masriya) - Egypt's gross domestic product growth dropped to 3 percent during the third quarter of the fiscal year 2014/2015, the Planning Ministry announced on Thursday.

The GDP growth declined from 4.3 percent in the second quarter of the year and 6.8 percent in the first quarter.

Growth was reported to stand at 4.7 percent during the first nine months of the past fiscal year, according to a Planning Ministry statement on the state's development plan for the fiscal year 2015/2016.

Egypt's Finance Ministry published late Tuesday a part of the financial statement on the draft budget for the new fiscal year 2015/2016. The president issued the state budget later on Wednesday.

The issued budget reduced the expected deficit to 8.9 percent of the GDP, as opposed to 9.9 percent projected by the cabinet in a budget draft it approved two weeks ago.

The new budget expects growth to rise to 5 percent, as opposed to an expected 4.2 percent in the 2014/2015 fiscal year.

The budget targets general investments worth 75 billion pounds, making up 2.7 percent of the GDP. Around 55 billion pounds would be generated from the state's treasury, while the rest would depend on loans, grants and self funding, according to the financial statement.