CAIRO: Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf met South Sudanese President Salva Kiir Mayardit on Monday during his two-day visit to to the newly formed country. Sharaf was accompanied by a delegation of Egyptian officials, including Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Hussein el-Atfi. Talks were hold around future plans to increase water resources of the Nile Basin, as several other Nile countries recently advanced their request to re-shuffle the percentage of Nile water sharing. Egyptian and Sudanese delegations agreed upon reviving plans for the construction of the Jonglei Canal in South Sudan. The canal would channel swamp water back into the Nile, amounting to an annual increase of Nile water availability of roughly 4 billion cubic meters. El-Atfi declared that Egypt contributed $800 thousand to the rehabilitation of three water level measurement stations in Juba and Malaka, South Sudan. The Egyptian Minister also promised to contribute $1.1 million for the rehabilitation of three more stations by the end of the year. Egyptian agriculture, domestic water consumption and energy supplies are tightly knit with the exploitation of Nile waters. Almost 17 percent of Egyptian Gross Domestic Product and 34 percent of total employment is related to the Agricultural works. Moreover, the Aswan Nile Dam produces some 2.1 gigawatts of power. Concerns about water supplies in Egypt and Sudan rise as they refuse to take part in talks on the Entebbe Agreement, recently signed by Nile Countries Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi. The agreement offers to re-shuffle Nile Water shares, still regulated by two 1929 and 1959 deals that allow Egypt to exploit some 90 percent of Nile waters. The new political and economic relations between Egypt and the two halves of Sudan heavily depend on water supply issues, especially since the construction of the Chinese-funded, 9km long hydroelectric plants in Merowe, Sudan, in March 2009. Inaugurated by Sudanese president Omar el-Bashir as the dam that would bring “poverty to an end in Sudan”, International rivers NGO has described the project as “one of the world's most destructive” of its kind, causing displacement of local population as well as threatening the conservation of archaeological finds. The volume of Egyptian investment in Sudan until before the country's division amounted to $5 billion, making Egypt the 6th country in the list of investing countries in Sudan. Holding 13 companies on the field, Cairo's trade exchange with Khartoum amounted to $638 million in 2010. Sharaf said Egypt want to open a new page with Suoth Sudan, and would be proud to be the second country to recognise its existence, after twin country Sudan. BM
