Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation, Dr. Mohamed Baha'a El Din said in an interview with the official Chinese News Agency (Xinhua) on 12/1/2013 that Egypt will not sign the agreement of "Entebbe" signed by the Nile River upstream countries unless the conditions become suitable for downstream countries.
The Minister stressed that the agreement, without signing Cairo and Khartoum, is useless.
As for China's funding for some of the Nile Basin countries to implement some water projects, Baha'a El Din asserted that Egypt asks China if it wants to fund water projects in any of the Nile Basin countries to make sure first that those projects will not negatively affect Egypt.
He pointed out that Egypt's quota of the Nile water is not enough and that there is a deficit about seven billion cubic meters, stressing that "the language of war is unacceptable" when dealing with the crisis among the Nile Basin countries. Bahaa Eddine asserted that Egypt will never give up its water rights if they are harmed by any projects in the upstream states.
On the possibility of entering Egypt in a partnership with Ethiopia to build the Renaissance Dam, the minister said Egypt has succeeded in stopping any funding to build this dam because international funding agencies require the approval of downstream countries to finance building the dam. He added that if Ethiopia needs to a partner, Egypt and Sudan have priority provided that those projects are of benefit to all of us especially that Egypt suffers from electricity crisis and Renaissance Dam is expected to generate six thousand megawatts.
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