Egypt will slash petroleum subsidies by nearly 43 percent in the 2016-2017 budget, Finance Minister Amr al-Garhy told a news conference on Saturday. The country will lower subsidies to 35 billion Egyptian pounds ($3.94 billion) from around 61 billion pounds in 2015/16, he said. Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi approved on March 31 a draft state budget which reduces the deficit in fiscal year 2016-17 to 9.8 percent of gross domestic product from the current 11.5 percent.