The Egyptian cabinet discussed Monday plans to build seawater desalination plants, as the country tries to address looming water scarcity.
Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said the government has prepared a strategic plan to establish more desalination plants.
Egypt needs around 114 billion cubic meters of water annually, while it only has 74 billion meters available, said Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Mohamed Abdel Aty in April.
The housing ministry’s 2050 plan on seawater desalination was reviewed during a cabinet meeting on Sunday.
The ministry is aiming to produce six billion cubic meters of desalinated water per day, it explained.
Ministers of planning and housing, as well as the executive director of the Sovereign Fund of Egypt and the Fund officials, attended the meeting.
In February, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ordered the immediate construction of a wastewater treatment plant in al-Hamam area on the northern coast, with a daily capacity of six million cubic meters.
The new plant is set to receive wastewater gathered from the agricultural drainages in the northern Delta.
The project aims at reclaiming and cultivating around 500,000 feddans west of the Delta as part of the state’s efforts to expand the agricultural areas nationwide and develop the Western Desert area.
