Jordan and the United States Tuesday laid the cornerstone for a water treatment plant that will increase potable water for Amman and the Dead Sea tourist area by 40 per cent, the US embassy said.
The Zara-Ma’in water treatment project is located just north of the Dead Sea, which has emerged as a bustling tourist destination over the last couple of years.
The facility to be completed in the year 2006 "will increase potable water supply for the Greater Amman and Dead Sea tourism area by 40 per cent, directly benefitting two million persons," the embassy said in a statement.
It will also enable "the expansion of Jordan’s tourism infrastructure," the statement said.
"The acute and frequent shortage of water in the Greater Amman area has been identified as among Jordan’s principal development challenges," it added.
The project will include a pre-treatment system, a desalination plant, six pumping stations and an advanced monitoring and control system, as well as the construction of a 40 kilometer pipeline.
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) will provide $104 million of the $125 million construction bill while the private sector will foor the rest under a Design-Build-Operate (DBO) agreement. (menareport.com)
© 2004 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
