His Majesty King Abdullah and Syrian President Bashar Assad on Monday laid down the cornerstone of Al Wahdah Dam project on the Yarmuk River, a vital water project that Jordan counts on to help overcome its severe chronological water shortage.



The ceremony was attended by a number of high ranking Jordanian and
Syrian officials.



Minister of Water and Irrigation/ Minister of Agriculture Hazem A Nasser said that the dam will cover 10 percent of Jordan water deficit. Jordan is one of the tenth poorest countries in water resources in the world, Nasser added. The dam will not solve the whole problem of water shortage because of the increasing high population growth and as a result the increasing demand on water supplies, the minister told Petra.



The cost of the dam, to be built in the northern Jordanian region of Maqaren on the Yarmuk, is JD 66 million, funded by the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development Fund and Abu Dhabi Fund for Development.



Jordan and Syria reached an agreement in April 2003 to build the dam although negotiations about the project started many years before that but were delayed repeatedly for the lack of funding.



Work on the long-awaited project started four months ago and it will be completed in two stages with a storage capacity reaching 225 million cubic meters of water. The first phase of the project is expected to be completed in December 2005 and will provide 30 million
cubic meters to irrigate 31000 dunums of arable land in the Jordan Valley and provide Amman and Zarka with 50 million cubic meters of drinking water. The second phase will generate 18800 megawatt of electricity to be used by the Syrian side.