CAIRO - Egypt's financial regulatory authority said it will finalise rules for short selling of shares by the end of September and be ready for a stock market launch by the beginning of 2019.

"We will complete the rules and regulations governing the short selling mechanism at the end of September, and then start training companies to implement the mechanism," Khaled el-Nashar, the authority's deputy chairman, told Reuters on Wednesday.

"We will be ready for implementation in early 2019 and then wait for the official decision to activate the mechanism and start using it."

(Reporting by Ehab Farouk, writing by Amina Ismail; editing by John Stonestreet) ((amina.ismail@thomsonreuters.com; +20 2 2394 8114;))