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Cairo: Until recently, people in the Nile Delta town of Damietta, some 180km north of Cairo, went about their usual business manufacturing furniture and fishing. Not any more.
Conversations almost everywhere in this city are dominated by one topic: the black project or the factory of death.
"This petrochemical factory being constructed near the summer resort of Ras Al Bar threatens us with heavy environmental havoc and even death," said Fouad Salah, a school-teacher.
"Never before has Damietta been so opposed to a project like this," added Salah, as a nearby vendor hawked his cucumbers, urging customers to buy them before they are "infected by cancer caused by the factory of death".
The controversial $1.4 billion (about Dh5.11 billion) plant is being built by Agrium, a Canadian company, which holds a 60 per cent stake in it. The government Egyptian Petrochemicals Holding Company, the Egyptian Natural Gas Company and the Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation of Saudi Arabia own 24 per cent, 9 per cent and 7 per cent respectively.
The project, officially known as Egyptian Agrium Nitrogen Products Company, plans to produce 1.3 million tons of urea and 100,000 tons of ammonia annually. It is due to be completed by 2010.
Opposition to the venture has been so vociferous that earlier this month President Hosni Mubarak ordered the government to work to dispel local fears.
"Since then we have been waiting for senior officials to come here or for the government to scrap its approval of the project. But nothing has happened," writer Samir Faraj, a native of Damietta, told Gulf News.
Faraj has filed a lawsuit against the Egyptian government and the Canadian ambassador in Cairo, accusing them of planning to destroy nearby Ras Al Bar, a popular resort favoured by middle-class Egyptians.
"This suspicious project is totally rejected because it threatens people, the environment and even the economy," he told Gulf News.
Lack of awareness
He explained that around $14 billion (about Dh51.1 billion) in tourism ventures are at stake because of the new petrochemical plant. "Prices of buildings in the vicinity have tumbled too."
In a signal of opposition to the project, the locals have hung black posters on the fronts of their buildings and stores.
City governor Fat'hi Al Baradei Mondy met with community and environmental leaders and urged them to suspend the protests pending negotiations with the Canadian side over relocating the controversial project.
"A lack of awareness is the main reason for this opposition and panic," said Khalid Salama, an Egyptian executive of the project.
"We are applying the highest safety standards in constructing and operating this complex," he told Gulf News. "The plant has more safety features than any other petrochemical factory in Egypt."
Salama added that the project has been approved by the Egyptian government "after thorough studies".
"We reach out to the local community and are trying hard to spread the correct information about the project, which will create around 150,000 jobs. But it has been to no avail so far."
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