Sudan By: Mona Shishter and Hussein Hassan (With photos) KHARTOUM, Jan 23 (KUNA) -- The state of Kuwait always lent a hand to other Arab brotherly countries whether at the governmental or popular levels, out of belief in the importance of the Arab nationalism and the necessary partnerships and economic projects supporting Arab and Muslim economy.
The Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED) was the main governmental body which helped funding a lot of projects and investment in the Arab countries in what contributed to developing their economies, creating job opportunities for citizens and providing them with a decent standard of living.
Examples on such Arab Kuwaiti partnerships are many, and mention but a few, are the two projects of Sugar Kananah company and Marwi Dam at the brotherly republic of Sudan which were reviewd by the Kuwaiti press journalist that currently visit Sudan.
This delegation consists of some elements from the Kuwaiti Journalists Association (KJA) and the Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) and they are Adnan Al-Rashed as the delegation's head, Sami Al-Nesif, Dr. Haila Al-Makimi, Mona Shishtr, Khaled Maarfi and Dina Al-Tarah.
Kuwait's help on Sugar Kananah company project, which is a precious treasure of Sudan and the biggest project of its kind for producing sugar all over the world, led to its completion within four years in a location 1,200 k.
m. away from the nearest Sudanese port Portsudan.
Director General of the company Al-Milham Al-Taib said that the notion of establishing such a project aimed at mixing the western expertise, Arab financial resources with Sudan's natural resources represented in sun, fertile lands, irrigation water in order to set up an industrial agricultural project that brings many economic benefits to Sudan such as job creation, transfer of advanced technology and doing away with sugar imports.
Al-Taib attributed Kananah's going ahead with its project despite many difficuties to funding it received from some Arab countries, particularly, the state of Kuwait, saying that, "Except for the support of both of Kuwaiti and Saudi governments, we would not have been capable of clearing the designing phase." Al-Taib also recalled how the idea of this project came first to late Sudanese president Jafaar Numeiri, businessman Roland Taini and Sudanese businessman representing the Kuwaiti Gulf Company in Sudan Dr. Khalil Othman.
Kuwait pitched in 21 percent of the total capital of the project, in addition to the funds provided by Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Arab company for investment and development, the Social Development Bank and a group of Sudanese commercial banks.
As for the Marwi dam project, resident Engineer of the project Mahjoub Idris Khalil said that planning for setting up such a dam which will officially be inaugurated next April started in 1940s and had the comprehensive study on it in 1993 and 1994 with Sudanese president issuing a decree setting up a unit for its implementation.
Engineer Khalil considered Marwi dam a takeoff for agriculture, industry, electricity generation and an additional qualitative shift to the joint power grid among Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia, pointing out that this dam is one of 22 others spanning the river Nile course. (end).
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