Egypt and Russian Federation seal deal to build first nuclear power plant

Moscow and Cairo signed an agreement on Thursday for Russian Federation to build a nuclear power plant in Egypt, with Russian Federation extending a loan to Egypt to cover the cost of construction.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said the project would involve the building of a "third-generation" plant with four reactors.

Al-Sisi provided few details of the cost or how the country would pay for the reactors that by some estimates could top $20 billion (18.6 billion euros).

The agreement stipulates parameters of the first nuclear plant in the Arab Republic of Egypt, which will be constructed in accordance with Russian technologies, as well as further development of nuclear infrastructure in the country.

In other nuclear news, the worldwide Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said that Africa's hesitation towards adopting nuclear technology is due to a lack of knowledge and understanding around the benefits of the technology's application.

The countries assume that the project will be carried out over 12 years, Rosatom said.

El-Sisi and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had agreed on the nuclear cooperation in February of this year during Putin's visit to Egypt. But the country froze its nuclear plans after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

The planned nuclear plant is expected to have a capacity of 1,000 megawatts of electricity. "The Dabaa nuclear plant will be the largest Russian-Egyptian project since the Aswan dam", Rosatom's press service quoted Kiriyenko.