CAIRO, December 2. /TASS/. The El Dabaa nuclear power plant (NPP), which is being built in Egypt in cooperation with the Russian state corporation Rosatom, provides an opportunity for the country to become a regional leader in modern technologies, vice-president of JSC Atomstroyexport (part of Rosatom), director of the El Dabaa NPP construction project, Alexey Kononenko, said at the forum "Development of the Nuclear Industry in Egypt" held in Cairo.

"The El Dabaa NPP will meet Egypt's growing needs for electricity and ensure its energy security," Kononenko noted, as quoted in the press release of the engineering division of Rosatom distributed following the event.

The project director praised active involvement of local companies in the construction of the first nuclear power plant on the African continent "with Russian technology of generation III+".

According to Kononenko, this "will allow Egypt to become a regional technological leader".

At the forum the participants discussed peculiarities of Rosatom's procurement system for the project in Egypt, establishment of local production for the needs of the nuclear power plant and how to attract Egyptian firms to the construction of the plant. The forum was attended by representatives of more than 50 companies from Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Republic of Korea and France.

El-Dabaa is the first nuclear power plant in Egypt to be built by Rosatom in the Matrouh Governorate on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea about 300 kilometers northwest of Cairo. This is Rosatom's first major project in Africa. By 2028, the state corporation will build four units of the plant with VVER-1200 reactors and will supply nuclear fuel throughout the life cycle of the NPP (60 years), as well as provide training, maintenance and repair services for 10 years after the start-up of each unit. The contract also provides for the construction of the first module of dry containerized storage of spent nuclear fuel by 2028. Egypt expects the NPP to reach full capacity by 2030.