Egypt’s plans to fast track its power plants look to be panning out as Siemens’ Beni Suef plantis ahead of schedule, according to The National. “I think it was right also what president Sisi has done to take a directional approach at the beginning,”says said Dietmar Siersdorfer, the chief executive of Siemens Middle East. “To say, ‘yes, we do this now’, because if he would have started a negotiation process and a tendering process for two or three years nothing would have been developed and we would still be in the same situation and we would still have three summers gone without any stability of supply.”

In a separate piece, The National writes thatthe pricing and financing for all three Siemens power plant were a milestone for Egypt, with Siersdorfer the price at which Siemens agreed to build the plants is “really something that is shaking up the industry … It was a very competitive pricing, not seen in this country or anywhere else.” Egypt locked-in a price of USD 500 per KW compared to industry averages of USD 700-900, he says. Bringing in export credit agencies to secure the facilities was also a feat, seeing as it hasn’t been done in Egypt “for years,” he says, and made it “viable for the banks to go for the project."