KUWAIT - Kuwait's Umm al-Hayman Wastewater Treatment Plant project will sign financing agreements with banks soon for a more than a billion dollar expansion, its board chairman Bakheet al-Rashidi said on Tuesday.

The Kuwait Authority for Partnership Projects signed a deal with Kuwait's IFA and Germany's WTE Wassertechnik GmbH group for the 382 million Kuwaiti dinar ($1.26 billion) expansion of the plant in southern Kuwait last year.

Al-Rashidi, formerly Kuwait's minister of oil and minister of electricity and water, was speaking to reporters after the founding meeting of the company that will run the project.

($1 = 0.3035 Kuwaiti dinars)

(Reporting by Ahmed Hagagy in Kuwait, writing by Nafisa Eltahir, editing by Louise Heavens) ((Nafisa.Eltahir@thomsonreuters.com; +971 56 226 1754;))