The Egyptian government and the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED) have signed Sunday a loan agreement worth KD 30 million (about US$98.7 million) designated to finance the power grid project between Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Egypt's Minister of International Cooperation Sahar Nasr and KFAED's Director General Abdulwahab Al-Bader have signed the agreement. The project aims to exchange power between Egypt and Saudi Arabia at peak time and in emergency to improve the economy of operation and to support the stability of the two networks which are the major ones in southern the Mediterranean Sea. The project contains three stations to evaluate the alternating current (AC) and turn it into a DC voltage of 500 KV in the Egyptian city of Bader and the Saudi cities of Tabuk and Madinah. The total cost of the project is estimated at KD 519 million, including about KD 200 million (about 4.7 billion Egyptian pounds) for the project established in Egypt. The loan will be repaid in 40 semi-annual installments over 25 years with an annual interest rate of two percent. Egypt has received so far from KFAED about 40 loans to finance projects in different sectors.
