Ethiopia is planning to build the country's largest ever multipurpose dam with an investment cost of 800 million US dollars, the Ministry of Water Resources said Tuesday.

In a news release from the ministry, it said this multipurpose dam is part of a series of dams to be built in the next few years.The project is a result of an agreement signed in 2001 between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt.

Sudan and Egypt will bear some of the cost of the construction of the dam, to be built at the border between the Amhara and Oromia regional states at a place called Kara Dobe.

It said some companies from Ethiopia and other countries are expected to complete the pre-feasibility study for the Kara Dobe Dam, 60 km west of the Abay Bridge at Dejen, by the middle of 2006.

Once the study is completed, the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation will take over from the ministry to undertake the actual construction. Experts say Ethiopia is believed to have a potential to generate 38,000 MW electric power from hydroelectric dams, the news release said.

In Ethiopia, only 13 percent of the population has access to electricity but that will rise to 20 percent by 2012, according to official data.

Source: Xinhua