negotiations," Paul van Son, chief executive officer of (Desertec Industrial Initiative GmbH) Dii, said today at the venture's third annual conference in Berlin. "The MOU will be a big step forward as it would bring renewable energy across borders from Morocco to Europe." Three years after the founding of Dii, the initiative that wants to generate electricity from the sun from Egypt to Morocco, it's still waiting construction of its first project... The Munich-based company's shareholders include utilities such as EON AG and RWE AG. (RWE) Deutsche Bank AG, UniCredit SpA (UCG) and Munich Re, also shareholders, would help finance the project while Dii wants to obtain state-backed grants and loan guarantees to entice more investment... Dii was dealt a blow on Oct. 22 when Siemens AG (SIE) pulled out of the venture and closed its unprofitable solar business http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-07\\... 7 Nov: GreenProphet: Tafline Laylin: Siemens Exits Desertec and China Wants to Enter As part of its plan to shake off its unprofitable solar shackles, including Israel's Solel initiative, German giant Siemens has exited the ambitious Desertec project. But that doesn't seem to have deterred the strength of the initiative, which is designed to enable Europe to import one fifth of its power by 2050 from renewable energy plants scattered across Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and other North African and Middle Eastern countries, as firms in China and other countries make moves to get involved. China's State Grid Corp (SGCC) expressed an interest in becoming involved in the $514 billion