Israel said on Thursday five groups have bid in a tender to build a new desalination plant to help the country contend with future water shortages.
The facility, to be built in northern Israel, will be the country's seventh desalination plant along the Mediterranean coast.
Preliminary bids to construct the plant, which will produce at least 100 million cubic meters of drinking water a year, came from groups that include Israel's IDE Technologies, Chinese-linked Hutchison Water, Spain's Tedagua and Acciona, the Finance Ministry said.