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Ammon News - Water Authority of Jordan (WAJ) Secretary General, Bashar Bataineh and Spanish Ambassador to the Kingdom, Miguel de Lucas, on Sunday discussed ways to enhance joint cooperation, especially in the areas of implementing new water projects, water resource management and governance.

The two sides discussed Spain's contribution to National Water Carrier Project (Aqaba-Amman Water Desalination and Transport Project), and securing the necessary funding for the implementation of Karak Governorate's water project by replacing the main carrier lines to raise efficiency of water supply in Karak's regions, according to a WAJ statement.

Bataineh said Jordan always seeks to develop an "effective" partnership with all international parties in this field, especially the EU countries.

Ministry of Water is working through a number of short, medium and long-term plans and programs to address the increasing water pressures, climate changes and the decreasing available water resources, he noted.

Bataineh also called for providing funding for more projects to raise efficiency of water supply, especially in the Kingdom's southern regions.

In addition, he reviewed expertise of Jordan's water sector management in achieving development goals to provide safe sources of drinking water, and improve the environmental reality through efficient wastewater management and reusage.

Jordan's water sector, with the help of international community, made a number of achievements, developed performance, automated multiple procedures, and embraced monitoring systems for various water sources, he noted.

Batayneh valued all forms of "fruitful" cooperation, support and projects implemented by the Spanish side, especially supervisory control and data-acquisition (SCADA) project in the northern regions, which is funded by Spain through a soft loan, looking forward to implementing more enterprises, he said.

For his part, the Spanish envoy affirmed his government's interest in strengthening Jordanian-Spanish partnership to develop the Kingdom water conditions and providing more assistance by contributing to National Water Carrier Project and Karak water supply enterprise, developing water systems, and implementing new projects during the coming period.