Outgoing housing minister Ibrahim Mahlab has been named Egypt's new prime minister and tasked with forming a government after the previous military-installed cabinet resigned, state newspaper Al-Ahram reported Tuesday.

The government of prime minister Hazem al-Beblawi resigned en masse Monday in a surprise move ahead of a presidential poll that is likely to bring outgoing defence minister and army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to power.

Mahlab has met with interim president Adly Mansour, who "officially tasked

(me) with forming a new government," the newspaper quoted Mahlab as saying.

Mahlab, an engineer, was a member of the National Democratic Party (NDP) of Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled after 30 years in power by an Arab Spring-inspired uprising in 2011.

Mahlab was also appointed to the upper house of parliament, the Shura Council, in 2010.

Mahlab, who is in his sixties, also formerly chaired state-owned Arab Contractors Company, a leading construction conglomerate in the Middle East and North Africa.

He headed the company for 11 years, Al-Ahram said, as it built several bridges and executed other projects in Cairo. Mahlab resigned from the company in September 2012. (AFP)