Luxembourg, 20/01/2004 (Agence Europe) - The European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Union's long-term financing institution, is providing a loan of EUR 70 million for the modernisation and extension of wastewater collection and treatment facilities of the Abu Rawash Wastewater Treatment Plant, Northwest of Cairo. The funds for this priority environmental investment to be commissioned end 2007, are advanced to Cairo Wastewater Organisation (CWO) and Cairo General Organisation for Sanitary Drainage (CGOSD). The project targets the development of environmentally friendly infrastructures for wastewater collection and treatment for Cairo's West Bank area. The project is the outcome of a feasibility study financed by EIB through METAP EUR 350 000 grant. METAP grants have financed also the studies on the waste-water masterplan of Cairo, which materialised later in infrastructural works for improving and extending water and sewerage services on the East bank of Cairo, namely the construction of sewer tunnels and the extension of the Gabal El Asfar wastewater treatment plant; EIB lending for these infrastructure operations amounted to EUR 90 million.