Russia's state-owned nuclear energy corporation, Rosatom, said on Wednesday it had received permission from an Egyptian regulator to start building the country's first nuclear plant.

Egypt and Russia signed an agreement to start work on Egypt's Dabaa nuclear power plant during a meeting in Cairo between President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and President Vladimir Putin in 2017.

Rosatom said in a statement the permission allows it to start construction on the first power unit out of the planned four with a capacity of 1,200 MW each.

(Reporting by Reuters)