Wu Yi establishes key Kenyan building materials complex
A recently completed Fujianinvested building material commercial center in Kenya expects to help meet growing demands from the local housing market.
China Wu Yi Co Ltd, a Fujianbased property enterprise, poured $100 million into building the complex in Machakos county to the south of Nairobi, the Kenyan capital last year.
The 12-hectare complex comprises precast building components, a display area, an office building, a hotel and an online-to-offline building supplies supermarket.
Qiu Liangxin, chairman of China Wu Yi, said the complex serves as a research, production, sales and display cluster for the local building industry.
“With the quickening pace of urbanization in Kenya, the residential market has massive potential,” he said.
Data from the Kenya National Statistics Bureau show demand for housing in cities across the country surged fivefold in the last 10 years, he said.
Kennedy Keraro, assistant county commissioner of Machakos, said the modern building center will play a key role in Kenya’s industrialization, as seen in its economic blueprint, Kenya Vision 2030.
Qiu said the supermarket in the complex — where customers can purchase cheaper, energy-saving and green building materials — can also better serve local low and medium-income families.
“It has introduced new technologies, including Internet Plus and intelligent tools, to offer citizens customized online services, which could change their consumption behavior,” he said.
About 2,000 local people were hired in the equal and safe working environment, he said. The Kenyan branch has also created a foundation to raise funds for people in need to enhance local ties.
In 2012, the company dug out 15 wells along the highway to ease water shortages for 100,000 local residents, their 500,000 head of livestock and its own construction projects, he said.
More than 300 families moved to the area in just four years, followed by the establishment of local schools.
The National Development and Reform Commission asked Fujian province to work with Kenya to promote global production capacity initiatives. The province is working on constructing a Sino-Kenyan economic and trade cooperation zone as a platform for local companies to connect with African markets.
In addition to the building materials sector, Wu Yi has also participated in eight major projects, including bilateral steel cooperation and business center construction projects.
About 100 local enterprises involved in machinery equipment, home decoration and other related industries have followed in Wu Yi’s footsteps, also expanding their operations into the Kenyan market, he said.
Founded in 1997, Wu Yi’s gross assets reached 10.9 billion yuan ($1.66 billion) by 2016, with a net profit of 219 million yuan that year, Qiu said. The company has 13 overseas operations and production bases, including those in Kenya, Australia, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea.
The company is transforming from the old engineering contracting model to a foreign investment model, Qiu said.
“Given the fierce competition and dropping profits in the international engineering contracting market, this new model represents the future trend of the housing industry,” he said.
The industrialization of construction projects can fall 80 percent of human labor, save three to six months and reduce armored concrete expenses by 30 to 40 percent, he added.
The eastern province of Fujian has a developed private economy, Qiu said.
Liu Jieming, Party chief of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Fujian, said the local government is encouraging local companies involved in 10 industries to enhance cooperation with countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative.
The industries include infrastructure construction, steel, cement, clean energy, electronic information, ship manufacturing and maintenance.
With the quickening pace of urbanization in Kenya, the residential market has massive potential.”
Qiu Liangxin,