The public–sector owned National Company for Construction and Development, NCCD, is competing to execute infrastructural projects in Ethiopia and the Nile Basin countries in the upcoming period, said Safwan al-Selmy, the board chairman of the NCCD, Mubasher reported Sunday.
The NCCD seeks to finish infrastructural and developmental projects in African countries, especially Ethiopia, in order to retrieve mutual cooperation between Egypt and the Nile Basin countries as well as boost relations and open new horizons for investments to compensate NCCD over its halted projects in Libya due to the violent atmosphere, Selmy told Mubasher.
The NCCD projects will include building sewage plants, establishing new cities and residential communities and paving roads, he said, adding that the company is working on two major roads in South Eastern Sudan, a project with an estimated value of 1.2 billion EGP ($168 million.)
Relations between Ethiopia and Egypt have been tense since the beginning of construction of the Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia; Addis Ababa claims it is essential for the country’s development, but many Egyptian experts and politicians say it presents a threat to Egypt’s due share of Nile water.
Professor of agricultural resources at Cairo University Nader Nour al-Din told Al-Bawaba News that Egypt will face major economic losses due to the dam, which could reach up to 20 billion EGP annually.
The African Union Peace and Security Council unanimously voted June 17 to restore Egypt’s union membership, which had been suspended following the ouster of Mohamed Morsi in July 2013. A number of experts have expressed the hope that Egypt’s renewed participation in the AU may facilitate the political impasse of the dam.
President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi is expected to highlight a number of vital projects that enhance the relationship between Egypt and Nile Basin countries and retrieve Egypt’s “status as a pioneer on the African continent,” at Monday’s African Union summit in Equatorial Guinea inside sources told Al Bawaba News.
