CAIRO: Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Wednesday that his country would cooperate with Cairo to build the first Egyptian nuclear power plant, and to establish a free trade zone, as well as infrastructure for wheat storage.
“One of the biggest bilateral cooperation projects in Egypt is to build first nuclear power plant based on Russian techniques,” Putin said in a joint news conference with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fatah al-Sisi who is paying Moscow a three-day visit.
The conference was held after a tete a tete between the two presidents. Putin added that he spoke with Sisi to establish an industrial city in Suez Canal Corridor, “so the Egyptian producers can get benefits from the available capabilities in the markets.”
In February, Sisi and Putin initialed agreements on building the plant and establishing a Russian-Egyptian free trade zone and an industrial city in Ataqa city in the Suez governorate as one of the projects of Suez Canal Corridor.
The nuclear power plant is scheduled to be established in Mediterranean city of Dabaa, which was allocated on 55 square kilometers in 1981. It locates 183.9 miles to the northwest of Cairo.
Egypt’s Ministry of Electricity would sign a contract with Russian state-owned nuclear company Rosatom to build the eight-reactor power plant.
During Wednesday’s conference, Putin announced that his country would help Egypt to build infrastructure for wheat storage; Russia is the biggest wheat exporter to Egypt which one of the one of the biggest wheat importer.
President Sisi said cooperation between Egypt and Russia has achieved “concrete development” in peaceful usage of the atomic energy in the latest period.
“We appreciate Russia’s role in inauguration of the New Suez Canal as Moscow dedicated Egypt offensive missile boat Molnyia (P-32).”
International combat against terrorism
Both leaders called on the international community to form a collation to combat terrorism in the Middle East.
They also talked the regional issues of Libya turmoil and Syrian crisis, and the latest developments in Yemen.