CAIRO, May 19 (Aswat Masriya) - Egypt's president Sisi approved a $25 bln loan from Russia to build a nuclear power plant in Dabaa, according to the state's official newspaper published on Thursday.

The presidential decree 484 for the year 2015 stated that a government loan from Russia must be taken before the nuclear power plant can be established in Egypt.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi signed a nuclear power plant deal with Russia last November, just days after the Kremlin’s unilateral announcement that the Russian charter flight which blew up over Sinai last October was downed by an act of terrorism.

A Russian passenger airplane crashed in the Sinai peninsula, killing all 224 people on board. The plane was heading from the Egyptian resort city of Sharm al-Sheikh to St. Petersburg in Russia. 

In a press conference following the signing ceremony, Sisi described the Russian proposal as "the fastest" and the "best" deal on the table, stressing that the nuclear programme will be used for peaceful power-generation purposes.  

It’s "a message of hope and peace to Egyptians and the world," he added.

He also assured that Egypt is committed "firmly and fully" to the non-proliferation treaty ratified by Egypt which prevents the use and dissemination of nuclear weapons.

"The Dabaa nuclear plant will be the largest Russian-Egyptian project since the Aswan dam," Sergey Kiriyenko, the head of Russia's state-owned nuclear firm Rosatom, previously told the media, adding that this will mark a new chapter in the history of the two countries’ bilateral relations.