The National Ethiopian Coordination office for the Renaissance Dam announced Wednesday that it will start producing power starting next year.

‪Zadig Abrha, the deputy manager of the office, said the project management team is implementing the final steps of producing 700 megawatt of power by early 2014.

“We have accomplished 25.4 percent of the project, and the project has created 6000 jobs so far, and when the project is complete far more jobs will be created, Abrha said.‪

As this project will be the leading power producer in Africa with a capacity of 6000 megawatts, some countries most notably Egypt and Sudan have had objections to the dam, fearing that their share from the Nile would decrease.

Egypt announced that it will collaborate with Ethiopia on the Renaissance Dam as a regional project, in a drastic move away from its opposition to the project, which precipitated a diplomatic crisis between the two countries.

At a meeting of water ministers of the eastern Nile Basin countries in Khartoum on Monday, Minister of Water Resources Mohamed Abdel Moteleb told the gathering that Egypt supports the initiative proposed by Ethiopia to treat the Renaissance Dam as a joint regional project.

Moteleb added that research should be conducted by countries benefiting or affected by any similar projects pertaining to the Nile Basin.