Investment and International Cooperation Minister Sahar Nasr signed on Tuesday five agreements worth EGP 5 billion (86.1 million Kuwaiti dinars) with the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development Director-General Abdulwahab A. Al-Bader to fund development in Sinai, according to a statement by the ministry. The first agreement, worth 60 million Kuwaiti dinars, will fund a project to build a tunnel in Sharm El-Sheikh in a bid to develop the city's infrastructure and road network. Another agreement allocates 17.5 million Kuwaiti dinars to build a highway linking Sinai to other areas in Egypt. The project aims at facilitating transport to and from Sinai in order to encourage tourism and to encourage citizens to move from the Delta to Sinai. The fund is also providing Egypt with a grant worth 500,000 Kuwaiti dinars to support a project by the Cabinet's Information and Decision Support Center to document the state's economic reform programme. The fourth agreement is worth 100,000 Kuwaiti dinars and consists of a grant to fund feasibility studies to implement palm tree cultivation and a date manufacturing project in Egypt. The fifth agreement is an amendment to a project for the development of signals on the Banha-Zagazig-Ismailia-Port Said railway, to use a surplus of 7 million Kuwait dinars to develop trains and purchase 100 new tractors. The government is working on encouraging investments and establishing development projects with a social impact in Sinai, Minister Sahar Nasr said. The fund financed 45 projects in Egypt in electricity, transport, manufacturing, potable water and sanitation worth $2.8 billion to date, in addition to grants and technical support worth $13.5 million, the fund's director-general said.
