CAIRO, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- Egypt and France have launched the "Cleopatra 2018 joint naval exercise" to boost security in the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, the Egyptian Armed Forces announced in a statement on Tuesday.

The exercise comes within the Armed Forces' annual framework of joint drills, said military spokesman Tamer al-Refaay in a statement.

Military ties between Egypt and France have enhanced recently. In October 2015, Egypt and France signed contract worth 1 billion U.S. dollars on the purchase of two French Mistral warships, which were delivered to Egypt in June and September 2016.

The Egyptian armed forces also received two Rafale fighter jets from France as the fourth batch of a deal signed in February 2015 and worth over 5.2 billion euros (about 6.1 billion dollars).

The pair raised the number of Rafale warplanes delivered to Egypt to 11 out of a total of 24 stated in the deal. The first nine Rafale jets were handed to Egypt in three batches in July 2015, January 2016 and April 2017 respectively.