Dr. Hassan Younis - Minister of Electricity and Energy, Dr. Hesham Qandeel – Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation, General Al Sayed Al Baradai – Assiut Governor, German Ambassador and Austria Ambassador signed the contract of New Assiut Barrage Project which is one of the mega national projects co-financed by Egyptian government and the German government represented by the German Development Bank. The project will be executed by a consortium from the Arab Contractors Company (Egypt), Vinci (France) and Orascom (Egypt) with a total value EGP 2.4 billion and the execution period is 5 years.
It is a noteworthy that the project will contribute in irrigation improvement in 1.65 million feddan in Middle Egypt region which includes Assiut, Menia, Bani Suief, Fayoum and Giza about 20% from the Egyptian land. The project includes two first class navigational locks 150m x 17m according to the state of the art technologies to accommodate the increase in the river and touristic transport. The project contributes in providing a traffic corridor through building 4-lanes, bridge over the barrage with a capacity 70tonnes to link the east and west banks of the river Nile in Assiut.