The Société Tunisienne d’Electricité et de Gaz (STEG) signed with Japanese firm Mitsubishi Hitachi Power, an agreement to build a 450MW power plant in Radès.

The infrastructure comes to replace a previous plant established in the region since 1980. The new plant will be located close to the old one and will be commissioned in two stages, the first in 2019 and the second in 2020.

The project which is estimated to cost 800 million Tunisian dinars (nearly $325 million) will be funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

While 2,000 jobs will be created during the construction of the plant, 150 permanent jobs will be generated after its commissioning.

Present at the signing ceremony of the agreement was Hela Cheikhrouhou, Tunisia’s minister of energy.