Issue #: 2996, Issue Date: 13th July, 2013

The Sudanese Agriculture and Irrigation Minister, Dr. Abdulhalim Al-Mutaafi said that his country is supportive of the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam which is being constructed at a place only about 40 Kms from his country’s border.
The Minister said the rationale behind the support of Sudan to the construction of the Ethiopian dam is that the dam is a “model “of development in the region.
He also said that it is better to build dams in Ethiopia rather than in Sudan or Egypt because of topographical reasons. “The level of evaporation in Sudan is higher than in Ethiopia and dam water reservoirs in Sudan and Egypt would be exposed to a higher temperature as they would be in flat lands while in Ethiopia reservoirs are built in deep gorges.”
Al-Mutaafi also pointed out that the tripartite dam investigative committee established by Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt showed that the dam construction in its first report presents positive developments of the dam construction.
Regarding the Egyptian concern over the dam construction in Ethiopia, The Minister said that it is political issue and a technical one. “Some Egyptian politicians have used the issue as a political instrument to pressurize their opponents.” Otherwise it is known that the building of the dam is beneficiary for downstream countries as it enables them to receive regulated free water, he said.
Al-Mutaafi said that the dam construction should be executed with a sense of cooperation and mutual benefit for Sudan and Egypt which badly need the Nile water for agricultural development and on the other hand, Ethiopia needs it to generate electric power. Otherwise, nobody will benefit from individual utilization of the waters, he added.
According to the Minister, Sudan has also been working to normalize relations between Ethiopian and Egypt by repeatedly telling Egyptian brothers that the construction of the dam would have common benefits.
Concerning the agricultural development in Sudan, the Minister indicated that his country is now emerging as one of the major exporting countries of agricultural products and livestock in Africa.
For example, this year, 2013, the agricultural export has increased to 2 billion USD from only 1,200,000,000, he said.
In 2012 the country exported 4 million live sheep to various countries and indicated that Sudan is becoming an agricultural investment spot for international business in the area. This export volume is expected to grow to 5 million this year.
According to the Minister, 33 percent of Sudanese land is arable and out of these, 18 million hectares have been developed so far and Sudanese agricultural production is expected to grow by 20 per cent this year.