Egypt and the Kuwaiti Fund for Arab Economic Development signed on Sunday three cooperation agreements worth 2.5 billion pounds.

The funds will be allocated for aiding Syrian refugees, building a seawater desalination plant and conducting studies for setting up a 1000 megawatt solar energy plant and a factory for silicon solar energy cell production.

International Cooperation Minister Sahar Nasr, who signed the agreements with director of the fund Abdel Wahab Badr, said 500,000 persons in a number of Egyptian governorates will benefit from the projects that will be funded by these agreements.

The seawater desalination plant aims at meeting growing demands of potable water in East Port Said City, she added.

The project will be launched early 2017 and will be finalized by 2019, she added.

The second agreement is a grant to be channeled into a number of projects serving Syrian refugees in Cairo, Alexandria, Giza and Damietta.

The projects will cover health, cleanliness and drainage domains.

The third agreement aims at financing technical and economic feasibility studies of two projects; setting up a 1,000-megawatt solar energy plant and a factory for solar energy production, the minister said.

She lauded constant cooperation between Egypt and the Kuwaiti fund, saying the fund contributed, till now, to funding 42 projects in Egypt at a cost of three billion dollars.