CAIRO, Apr 8 (Aswat Masriya) - Egypt signed a loan agreement worth 60 million Kuwaiti dinars (around $199.4 million) with the Kuwait-based Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development on Wednesday, a ministry said.

The loan will be used to finance a power plant project, West of Cairo, the International Cooperation Ministry said in a statement. 

The agreement will see the Kuwaiti fund provide Egypt with aid worth 200,000 Kuwaiti dinars (approximately $664,700). It was signed on the sidelines of the annual meeting of joint Arab financial institutions. 

Egypt has been facing an energy crisis for years, with power outages surging in the summer.

Power plants are in dire need of maintenance and there is a need to build more plants to meet increasing demands.

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi stressed the importance of routine maintenance of power plants to increase productivity, in a meeting with the electricity and petroleum ministers on Sunday. 

The president also called for implementing energy deals signed during the Egypt Economic Development Conference last month as quickly as possible.