Corporate News
Industrialisation Cabinet Secretary Adan Mohamed. PHOTO | SALATON NJAU
By EDWIN OKOTH, edokoth@ke.nationmedia.com
In Summary
Chinese conglomerate China Wu Yi is building a Sh10
billion housing materials plant in Athi River after bagging major
tenders in the country.
The factory, expected to be complete in June, will
manufacture precast materials that will also be sold to other
construction firms.
The multinational is putting up the plant through
its locally incorporated subsidiary China Wu Yi Precast (Kenya) Company
Limited.
Its chairman Qiu Liangxin said the project would
create a modern building industry base for research, manufacture, sale
and demonstration of pre-cast elements in Kenya.
“The development of prefabricated building is
significant to the transformation of construction, with advanced
guarantee on construction quality and safety,” Mr Liangxin said.
“We have been behind various projects in this
region and this will be our first building materials producer
established overseas.”
The factory will sit on 30 acres of land off
Mombasa Road. It will include a pre-cast element plant, a display area,
warehouse and a construction material supermarket which will introduce
materials from China, effectively making it a one-stop shop for building
materials in the country.
The supermarket will stock among others stones,
ceramic tiles, bathroom appliances, construction electrical fittings,
lamps and kitchen furniture.
The pre-casts will include solid wall panels,
hollow core slabs, sandwich wall panels, facade panels, lift shafts,
staircases and foundation piles.
Customers will be able to obtain the pre-cast
materials to fit their housing designs enabling fast and less costly
construction.
The firm has partnered with two German technology
services providers, Ebawe Anlagetechnik to supply equipment for the
concrete pre-casts production and Nemetschek to provide the software for
the design of the housing parts.
Industrialisation Cabinet Secretary Adan Mohamed
who presided over the ground breaking ceremony on Saturday said the
project was among those the government signed a cooperation agreement
during the China-Africa Business Council in Beijing.
“This is basically industrialising the construction
sector because this will shorten building period by more than 50 per
cent,” Mr Mohamed said.
“The building and construction industry is rapidly
growing and this investment is very timely for our economy and in line
with our industrialisation blue print. The number of cement companies
around here will no doubt have new demand for cement from this firm.”
China Wu Yi, which participated in the construction
of the Thika Superhighway, the University of Nairobi Tower, Mama Lucy
Kibaki Hospital and several apartments in Nairobi is also planning to
put up an iron and steel factory in Kenya in the near term.
The plant, whose timelines were undisclosed, will produce
over three million tonnes of steel targeting public and private sector
projects.
China Wu Yi will also rely on the plants to feed
its own projects in the country where it has emerged as one of the
largest construction firms.
The multinational last year said it had won four construction tenders in Kenya worth Sh10.1 billion.
The multinational last year said it had won four construction tenders in Kenya worth Sh10.1 billion.
Its latest contract is the Sh16.4 billion reconstruction and capacity enhancement of James Gichuru Junction-Rironi road.
The road works, meant to ease traffic flow in the capital, is being funded by World Bank and the government.
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