SCZone, EBRD sign consultancy agreement for Ain Sokhna seawater desalination project

CAIRO - 19 November 2023:  The General Authority for the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) signed Sunday  a consultancy services agreement for the seawater desalination project in Ain Sokhna.

 

The agreement was signed by Walid Gamal El Din, Chairman of the SCZone, and Khaled Hamza, Director of the EBRD office in Egypt.

 

The signing was witnessed by Egypt’s Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, on the sidelines of the roundtable included the Egyptian government, representatives from multilateral development banks, financial institutions, UN agencies, bilateral partners, and the private sector to discuss the progress made within Egypt's Country Platform for the Nexus of Water, Food and Energy (NWFE) program, which was launched in July 2022. The roundtable included the launch of the first NWFE Program Report Titled “A Year of Implementation”.

 

Under the agreement, the EBRD provides advisory services to govern the selection procedures of the global consulting offices that will prepare documents for issuing a limited tender to the local, regional and international private sector for a project to design, build, manage, maintain and operate the seawater desalination plant in Ain Sokhna with a production capacity ranging between 200 and 300 thousand cubic meters per day as a first stage, in addition to participating in confirming the validity of all negotiation and award procedures, to confirm the soundness of the project procedures and the ability to provide the external financing required for its implementation.

 

The agreement also includes conducting the necessary legal, technical and environmental studies to implement the project by specialized consultants, with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, in its capacity as general consultant, undertaking the process of selecting consultants.

 

Pre-qualification processes for projects will also be managed; This is in order to offer the project to private sector investors who have the financial and technical solvency and the necessary expertise with the aim of selecting the best technical and financial offers to implement the project, managing the process of awarding the offerings to investors and concluding various contracts.

 

For her part, Minister of International Cooperation, Rania Al-Mashat commented that the signing ceremony of providing technical support and advisory services for the benefit of the Suez Canal Economic Zone, by the EBRD, in order to implement the seawater desalination project in Ain Sokhna under a public-private partnership system, in order to feed projects for the production of green hydrogen and its derivatives in particular. In addition to other industrial projects targeting green transformation in the industrial zone in Sokhna.

 

She added that in light of the state’s efforts to enhance the participation of the private sector in various sectors, especially water desalination projects, technical support was provided by the EBRD and the World Bank’s IFC, for the benefit of the Sovereign Fund of Egypt, with the aim of providing consultations in structuring, preparing and purchasing water desalination projects and its implementation in partnership between the public and private sectors.