The Egyptian Electricity Holding Company will sign Sunday a LE10 billion ($1.2 billion) loan contract with a group of banks to partially finance the country’s three new power plants with a combined capacity of 14,400 megawatts, the electricity ministry said.

The ministry and the state's largest lender, the National Bank of Egypt, will sign the contract on behalf of the aforementioned parties, according to a ministry emailed statement Sunday.

The new power stations, located in Beni Suef governorate south of Cairo, north of Borolos Lake in Kafr El Sheikh governorate, and in Egypt’s new administrative capital, will be constructed by German industrial giant Siemens and its Egyptian partners, Orascom Construction and El-Sewedy Electric.

The plants, which cost a total of 6 billion Euros ($6.5 billion), are expected to start operations in December 2016 in order to enhance the national electricity grid and meet new investment energy demands.

In June, Siemens signed contracts worth 8 billion Euros with the Egyptian government for high-efficiency natural gas-fired power plants and wind power installations that will boost Egypt's power generation capacity by more than 50 percent, compared to current capacity.

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