10/11/2004 (Agence Europe) - The European Investment Bank (under the Facility for Euro-Mediterranean Investment and Partnership FEMIP) has just granted a EUR 200 million loan for clean energy production in Syria. The loan to the Syrian Arab Republic is for the construction of a 750 MWe natural gas-fired combined cycle power plant located at Deir Ali, 25 km south of Damascus. This FEMIP loan is the largest ever signed in Syria, and, so far, the largest in the energy sector signed in 2004 in the Mediterranean Region. It is the third FEMIP loan in the Syrian electricity sector over the last five years, after the Electricity Transmission loan (EUR 75 million in 2000) and the Electricity Distribution loan (EUR 115 million in 2001).