East African Business Week

The cost of building materials for low and medium sectors is expected to fall by as much as 40 percent in Kenya.
Housing minister, Mr Soita Shitanda, says the reduction in prices will be made possible after the Government acquired a building materials factory at the cost of Sh800million.
Shitanda was speaking during the official opening of the 5 Th edition of the Mombasa Homes Expo held at Whitesand Sarova Hotel in Mombasa over the Easter weekend.
He said the ship carrying machinery for the factory, whose components originate from Italy, was expected to dock at the port of Mombasa last week.  The factory is scheduled to be fully operational by August this year. "It has been our desire and a dream that all Kenyans should own good homes. And with this factory, building materials will be cheap and affordable," said the Minister.
The minister said production using the new machinery will be very fast and that it will take two weeks to put up a three bedroom unit using products from the factory.
He spoke amid fears that construction projects might stall due to increasing fuel prices. The Daily Nation quoted the chief quantity surveyor at the Ministry of Public Works, Mr Moses Nyakiongora, as saying that an increase in cost of fuel paints a grim picture for the sector in the coming months. "Most construction contracts go on for a long period of time and in case of abrupt cost adjustments, the projects suffer and some might even stall," he said.
The National Housing Corporation has put up buildings in Mavoko town (also called Athi River 20 km from Nairobi on the Nairobi-Mombasa Road) to host the plant that will produce prefabricated materials with the aim of stepping up efforts to provide homes in the country. "The plant is being assembled in Italy. We are hoping that by July or August (this year) we shall be doing the testing and by end of the year to be in production," NHC managing director James Ruitha told journalists recently.
The factory will enable faster construction of houses for the lower end market segment, which has been hit hard by escalating cost of the conventional houses. "We had to look for a technology that would act like a conveyor belt in a motor assembly plant; that is the only way to deliver houses in a large scale," Mr Ruitha said of a plant.
Opening the building, construction, auto, tourism and leisure exhibition in Mombasa last week, Shitanda said: "This year's theme has captures my ministry's efforts in fighting to ensure an increase in home ownership, support housing development and access to affordable housing for all Kenyans".
He however said issue of land was still a thorny issue particularly in the urban area and his ministry was working hard to address it. "You will find land in urban areas expensive ranging from Sh8m going upwards," he noted.
The minister said Kenya's Coast region has experienced influx of foreign investors and attributed the phenomenon to the Government for making the Kenyan Coast as an investment hub. "The region has experienced exponential growth in intellectual capital as depicted by the increased number of tertiary institutions".
Shitanda said plans to expand the port of Mombasa, the development of Kilifi and Diani as resort cities and the upcoming of oil refineries in Lamu and manufacturing firms (in Mombasa) are indicators of the immense potential in the Kenyan coast as a trading block.
Mombasa Expensive
Assistant minister for Housing, Bishop Dr Margret Wanjiru noted that the cost of housing in Mombasa was still high.  She observed that Mombasa was still expensive to purchase a home compared to Nairobi and other regions.