Khartoum - (AFP) - Sudan signed an agreement worth six billion dollars on Tuesday with a consortium led by the Abu Dhabi Ports Group and the Invictus Investment Company, to establish the new Abu Amama port, which includes an economic zone, on the Red Sea .

The Sudanese Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Jibril Ibrahim, said during the signing ceremony, "The cost of the project amounts to six billion dollars ... and it will give a strong impetus to the Sudanese economy and bring countless benefits to the country," according to the Sudan News Agency.

The port of Abu Amama, which will be built north of Port Sudan, through which the vast majority of the country's imports and oil exports from South Sudan pass, will include "an industrial area, a tourist area, an international airport ... and a power station, in addition to cultivating 400,000 acres" (about 162,000 hectares), according to Ibrahim. .

The Abu Dhabi Ports Group is mostly owned by the Holding Company (ADQ), an Abu Dhabi sovereign fund, while the Invictus Investment Company is run by Osama Dawood Abdul Latif, who is the Chairman of Dal Corporation, the largest private group in Sudan.

For its part, the Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported that the agreement "grants the alliance the rights to develop, manage and operate a port and the assets of an economic zone in Sudan."

The agreement comes a week after the ruling military in Sudan signed, on December 5, a framework agreement with civilian leaders that would extricate the country from the crisis it has been mired in since the army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s coup in October 2021 against the transitional authorities. Which was formed after the overthrow of Omar al-Bashir in 2019.

The Emirates News Agency described Sudan as a "major trading partner" of the United Arab Emirates, noting that UAE exports to Sudan amounted to $1.14 billion in 2020, while Sudan's exports to the UAE amounted to $1.86 billion in 2020.