BASF, the world’s largest chemical maker, has opened a Sh 1 billion (€9million) manufacturing plant for concrete admixtures and cement additives as it eyes huge deals in regional infrastructure projects.
It intends to leverage on the plant to reduce importation cost of construction chemicals from Germany while it meets local demand for the construction industry.
“We see the big infrastructure projects like the Greenfield Terminal at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, the Mombasa port development… we would very much like to be a supplier of choice for the railway project going on between Mombasa and Nairobi, Olkaria Geothermal Development, but not only here in Kenya but across the region,” said BASF country manager, Graham Dean.
The government is focused on developing ‘first class’ transport infrastructure to increase the country’s regional competitiveness by easing cost of doing business from manufacturers.
Government intends to almost double revenues from railway development levy it introduced last year to Sh 22.9 billion from Sh14.9 billion to help fund development of Standard Gauge railway (SGR).
Similarly in this year’s budget the government availed Sh 19.4 billion for the first phase development of the controversial Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) estimated to cost Sh 327 billion from Mombasa to Nairobi.
Kenya seeks to triple its energy generation capacity to 5000MW by 2017, to caution manufacturers from high production costs and boost their competitiveness-it has thus set aside Sh 10 billion for geothermal development.
Construction of new airport terminal and a second runway adjacent to JKIA(The Greenfield terminal), Is to cost the government sh55 billion (US$654 million) when completed in 2017-it will hold 20 million customers annually.
