Egypt's new president visits Saudi Arabia

CAIRO -- Egypt's first elected civilian president arrived in Saudi Arabia yesterday to strengthen ties with the region's biggest economy as negotiations to form a government in Cairo continue.

Mohammed Morsi, on his first foreign trip since winning the presidency last month, met Saudi officials and members of the royal family in Jeddah before performing the lesser pilgrimage, or Umrah, in Mecca, yesterday. His visit follows an invitation from King Abdullah, who had been allied with Egypt's deposed leader, Hosni Mubarak.

"His economic agenda will be firmly focused on capital flows -- both direct Saudi investment and official aid," said Said Hirsh, an economist at Capital Economics in London. "Saudi Arabia will have no problem helping Egypt with more funds."

Morsi has struggled to assert his authority over Egypt's former ruling generals and confronted the judiciary. A constitutional court overturned his order to reinstate parliament, a ruling he accepted Wednesday. He inherits an economy battered by 17 months of unrest that followed the uprising against Mubarak.

Egypt, which used up more than a half of its international reserves in that period, is seeking to reach a $3.2 billion loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund.

The Freedom and Justice Party, the Muslim Brotherhood's political arm, wants 35 percent of the posts in the new government, according to state-owned newspaper Al-Gomhuria, which named Essam el-Erian and Mohammed el-Beltagy, among the party's leaders, as possible cabinet members.

Morsi, 60, who comes from the Brotherhood's ranks, was elected president with a slender majority. He has decreed that another parliamentary vote will be held within 60 days of the approval of a new constitution in a referendum. The charter has yet to be drafted.