Sisi and Putin start Egypt’s first-ever nuclear power plant

Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, who is currently visiting Cairo attended a ceremony of signing an agreement to officially launch work on Egypt’s first-ever nuclear power plant at Dabaa on the north coast.

Egypt’s Minister of Electricity Mohamed Shaker and the Russian Rosatom Director General Alexi Likhatchev signed the document to officially start the project.

According to the initial Dabaa agreement signed by the two countries in 2015, Russia would build four reactors, each producing 1,200 megawatts of electricity, making a total output of 4,800 megawatts.

The first reactor in Dabaa project is expected to begin operations in 2024, with the entire project to be completed within 12 years.

The agreement completes an preliminary agreement signed with Russia in November 2015 to build a nuclear power plant in Dabaa, along with a $25 billion loan to cover 85 percent of the plant, with Egypt funding the remaining 15 percent.

Russian nuclear firm Rosatom will finance and construct four third-generation reactors, with a capacity of 1,200 megawatts (MW) each, for a total of 4,800 megawatts. The plant will be built on approximately 12,000 feddans and is expected to create over 50,000 job opportunities.

Earlier on Monday afternoon, El-Sisi received Putin at Cairo International Airport at the start of the Russian leader’s second official visit to Egypt.

After the signing ceremony, El-Sisi and Putin announced in two addresses the results of their talks on bilateral economic, military and political relations; the war against terrorism; the resumption of Russian flights to Egypt; as well as regional crisis including Palestine, Libya and Syria at the presidential palace in Cairo on Monday afternoon.

The two leaders held talks at the palace in Heliopolis shortly after Putin arrived in Cairo earlier this afternoon to start his second official visit to the country.