Egypt is planning to offer five seawater desalination and industrial wastewater treatment plants over the next two months, according to a news report.

The plants will be offered under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) initiative to local and international investors, Atter Hannoura, head of the PPP unit at the Ministry of Finance, told Al Arabiya, an Arabic news channel.

"We are currently preparing to launch a new plant in the Suez Canal Economic Zone immediately after the Eid al-Adha holiday," he said.

The plant's capacity is expected to be 500,000 cubic meters of water per day (m3/day), which is likely to cost more than $400 million.

Hannoura said negotiations are ongoing between the government and several major companies, including Saudi Arabia's ACWA to implement large-scale water desalination projects.

Egypt currently produces between 1.5 and 2 million m3/day of desalinated water and aims to reach between 8 and 9 million m3/day by 2050, the report said.

Hanoura said the government is ready to offer four industrial wastewater treatment plants to investors, with the  first two scheduled to be launched within 45 days, he said

The first station will be in the Amreya Industrial Area in Alexandria Governorate, while the second station will be in the Abu Rawash area in Giza Governorate, the report said.

(Writing by P Deol; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@lseg.com)

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