A tripartite meeting will be held in October to choose an international consultancy office that will be tasked with completing the studies on Ethiopia's Renaissance Dam disputed with Egypt and Sudan.
It will be an important meeting, said Egypt's Irrigation Minister Hossam Moghazi on Tuesday.
Each of Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia named three offices. They will have to settle on only one when they meet on October 20-21, Moghazi said in statements to MENA before leaving for Saudi Arabia to perform the Hajj.
The Renaissance Dam is a gravity dam on the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia currently under construction. It will be the largest hydroelectric power plant in Africa when completed. The reservoir at 63 billion cubic meters will be one of the continent's largest.
Egypt fears a temporary reduction of water availability due to the filling of the dam and a permanent reduction because of evaporation from the reservoir, whose volume is about equivalent to the annual flow of the Nile at the Sudanese-Egyptian border (65.5 billion cubic meter).
This loss to downstream countries would most likely be spread over several years. Reportedly during the filling of the reservoir 11 to 19bn cubic meters of water per year could be lost, which would cause two million farmers to lose their income during the period of filling the reservoir.
Source: MENA