Russian President Vladimir Putin and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi today launched construction of a new unit of Egypt’s Dambaa nuclear power plant via video link as Moscow advances its nuclear ambitions globally.

The nuclear power plant is being built by the Russian state-owned company Rosatom, it will cost as reported the 30 billion dollars and will have four nuclear reactors with a total power of 4.8 gigawatts.

The two presidents inaugurated the construction of the fourth and final unit of the nuclear power plant, according to Egyptian state media.

“The cooperation between our two countries continues and develops. Egypt is our close friend and strategic partner,” Putin said.

Facing increasing energy demand from a population of 105 million, Egypt is looking to become a regional energy hub that will export electricity to neighboring countries and diversify its energy sources.

Since Sisi became president in 2014 the country has developed a surplus of electricity generation capacity, but has been facing blackouts since last summer as heat waves increased demand for cooling.

Production of natural gas used to generate electricity has also fallen, and Egypt is resorting to burning more polluting fuel oil in some power plants as it tries to boost exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG), an important source of hard-earned foreign currency.

“The introduction of nuclear power into the energy mix…is important to meet the growing demand for electricity,” Sisi said.

Moscow and Cairo signed an agreement in 2015 under which Russia would build a nuclear power plant in Egypt, with Russia providing a loan to Egypt to cover the construction costs.

Elsewhere, Russia is helping to implement nuclear power plant construction projects, such as at Kudankulam in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Paks in Hungary and Akuyu in Turkey.

The Russian state-owned nuclear power company Rosatom also has operations in China and Bangladesh.