A new meeting of the tripartite committee between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan on Ethiopia's controversial Grand Renaissance Dam kicked off Thursday morning in Cairo.

The meeting comes a month after a previous one in Addis Ababa, where Egyptian officials said a breakthrough had been reached in talks, despite that many issues of contention concerning the building of the dam were still unresolved.

Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan's delegations will be headed by each country's water resources minister.

In September's meeting, standards for the international expert consultancy that would assess the dam's impact were set, as well as the procedural rules of the national experts committee formed by an agreement between the three countries in August, and which would ultimately decide on issues pertinent to the dam's construction.

Egypt is worried the dam will affect its annual share of Nile water. Ethiopia insists the dam won't have any negative effect on Egypt. Some 40 percent of the dam has already been built, Ethiopian President Mulatu Teshome said this month.

 According to Al-Ahram's Arabic news website, the parties will also choose the legal firms that will represent the countries when the consultancy is decided upon. The mechanisms of exchanging technical information needed from the three countries will also be established in the meeting.

The anticipated study should conclude by March 2015, according to Egypt's Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation.