CAIRO, May 8 (Xinhua) -- Egypt's economic growth rate increased to 5.6 percent during the third quarter of 2018-2019 fiscal year, against 5.4 percent in the same period of the previous fiscal year, Minister of Planning Hala al-Saeed said on Wednesday.

Egypt's fiscal year starts in early July and ends in late June.

"Significant developments have been observed in several economic indicators, which showed the economic reforms in the country are moving on the right track," al-Saeed said.

The public investments hit about 310 billion Egyptian pounds (18.07 billion U.S. dollars) during the first nine months of 2018-2019 fiscal year with a growth of 19 percent, she added, noting that governmental investments rose by 26 percent to 90 billion pounds.

"The unemployment rate decreased to 8.9 percent during the second quarter of fiscal year 2018-2019, compared with about 11.3 percent in the same period of the last year," she said.

The annual inflation rate declined to 14 percent during the first nine months of fiscal year 2018-2019, against 25.6 percent a year ago, she added.

The minister said the government targets a faster economic growth rate to 5.8 percent during the fourth quarter of the current fiscal year.

Due to political turmoil and relevant security challenges over the past few years, Egypt has been suffering an economic slowdown.

To contain the shortage of cash reserve, the government decided to fully float the exchange rate of the pound and adopted an economic reform program that cut fuel and energy subsidy and hiked taxes.

The International Monetary Fund supports Egypt's economic reform plan with a 12-billion-dollar loan, two thirds of which has been delivered already.