Egypt is reviewing a final agreement with Germany’s Siemens AG to develop a 360 billion Egyptian pound ($23 billion), 1,000-km high-speed electric railway network, Egypt’s presidency said on Wednesday.

Work would start immediately on an initial 460-km section running from Ain Sokhna on the Red Sea to New Alamein on the Mediterranean coast, passing through a new capital under construction in the desert east of Cairo, according to a statement on the Facebook page of the presidency spokesman. 

The initial section would include 15 stations and be completed in two years, said the statement, published after a meeting between President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Siemens President and Chief Executive Officer Joe Kaeser.

It was not clear from the statement if the two sides had yet signed the agreement. 

Siemens built three 4.8 gigawatt electricity plants in Egypt beginning in 2015 at a total cost of $7 billion. Each of the three gas-powered plants was billed at the time as the biggest in the world.

-Reuters