CAIRO (AFP) - 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 on Tuesday.

The government of prime minister Hazem al-Beblawi resigned en masse on 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.

Mr Mahlab has met with interim president Adly Mansour, who "officially tasked (me) with forming a new government," the newspaper quoted Mahlab as saying.

Mr 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.

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

Mr 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. Mr Mahlab resigned from the company in September 2012.