French-led investors sign deal to build desalination plant in Jordan

 Jordan, one of the world's driest countries, signed an agreement on Sunday with French-led investors to build one of the world's largest desalination plants.

Jordan's official Petra news agency called it the country's biggest-ever infrastructure project, which Prime Minister Jafar Hassan has told Parliament is valued at more than $5 billion (€4.7 billion).

French infrastructure specialists Meridiam lead the project in partnership with SUEZ, Orascom Construction and VINCI Construction Grands Projets.

On its website, Meridiam said the project would supply more than 300 million cubic metres of drinking water to Amman and Aqaba, serving in excess of three million people.

"This project will increase the total annual available domestic water supply by almost 60 percent" for households, and will also include about 445 kilometres of pipelines to transport the desalinated water from the Red Sea, Meridiam said.

 

Transformative potential

Jordan's Water and Irrigation Minister Raed Abu al-Saud emphasised the project's "transformative potential", noting it would "mark a significant shift in Jordan's water security landscape", according to Petra.

The project will take about four years to complete, the prime minister said last month.

It follows Jordan's pullout from a plan that would have linked the Dead Sea and Red Sea by pipes in Jordan.

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In 2013, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians signed a memorandum of understanding on that project, which included plans to build a desalination plant at the Red Sea.

But against the backdrop of popular anger in Jordan due to stagnation in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, then-water minister Mohammad al-Najjar in June 2021 said the Red Sea-Dead Sea project was "now a thing of the past".

(with AFP)