German industrial group Siemens is seeking to obtain letters of guarantee totalling €1.2 billion from Egyptian banks. The targeted letters of guarantee will go for Siemens' planned projects to build three power plants each with capacity of 4400 megawatts, according to banking sources near from the talks told Amwal Al Ghad on Wednesday. One power plant will be located in Burullus, near the town of Kafr el Sheikh, some 210km (130 miles) north of Cairo. The second is in Beni Suef proper, about 115km (71 milles) south of Cairo; while the third planned plant is in the Egyptian new administrative capital city. On Tuesday, another banking source said to Amwal Al Ghad that some Egyptian banks were planning to secure 7 billion Egyptian pounds (US$917.3million) to fund Siemens' businesses in Egypt, including the three power plants. Those banks are the National Bank of Egypt (NBE), Commercial International Bank (CIB), Banque Misr, QNB AlAhly, the Arab African International Bank (AAIB), and Bank Audi –Egypt. During his recent visit to Berlin, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi signed earlier this month an €8 billion contract with Siemens to increase power generation capacity by 50 per cent. The contract will add 16.4 gigawatts of capacity to the country's grid, or enough electricity to power 16 million homes. Egypt wants to double its power generation capacity by 2020 and has signed non-binding memorandums of understanding worth more than US$20 billion during the Egypt Economic Development Conference in March this year.
