Kenya Airways Boeing B777-200ER plane at their maintenance hangar in Nairobi. Passengers alight from a Kenya Airways’ plane at the Kisumu International Airport . The national carrier is among General Electric’s main customers in the region. Photo/REUTERS | FILE
General Electric Co, the largest US conglomerate, has upgraded its Nairobi office to a regional hub to serve its sub-Saharan Africa business.
The Nairobi office used to serve the East Africa region but will now act as a hub for its west, central and part of southern African business—excluding South Africa.
GE’s revenue from Africa accounts for roughly one per cent of its global revenue, but that share is likely to go up, said Jeffrey Immelt, the group chief executive at GE in Nairobi on Monday.
“We have opened the regional office in Nairobi to serve sub-Saharan Africa because GE has identified ample opportunities to invest in, especially in infrastructure,” said Mr Immelt at an event attended by Vice- President Kalonzo Musyoka.
GE says its revenue of about $1.5 billion from across 14 countries including South Africa, Nigeria, Angola and Kenya has been growing in double digits over the last two years. It is targeting to maintain a growth of 10-15 per cent in the short term targeting the power and health sectors.
In Kenya, its prime customers are Kenya Airways and Rift Valley Railways whom its supplies with engines.
It also serves hospitals with equipment such as X-ray machines.
It is also seeking a piece of Kenya’s power sectors where it has started the construction of a 100 megawatts wind power plant worth Sh34 billion and is seeking land in Northern Kenya to build another wind power plant with a capacity for 150 MW.
It joins a string of multinationals including Bharti Airtel, Nestle, Heineken and Coca-Cola that has set their regional shops in Kenya thanks to the location of Nairobi and ease of getting skilled employees for their operations.
The firm also operates in Ghana, Senegal, Cameroon, Rwanda Ethiopia, Zambia, Senegal and Equatorial Guinea and has 1,200 staff on the continent.
“We are long term investors, I saw these trends in Brazil and China some two decades ago— this is the time to invest in Africa,” Mr Immelt in reference to the increased investor interest in the continent.
But unlike other countries such as China and India, which have focused their attention on Africa’s resources like oil and minerals and market for the produce, the US is targeting the high tech products to maintain its share of the continent’s business.
Chinese exports to Kenya have grown steadily in recent years at the expense of the US and other western nations.
In 2006, the value of Chinese imports overtook those of US to stand at Sh120.6 billion last year compared to Sh39.3 billion of Washington.
While China’s cheap goods have flooded the streets and supermarkets of all major cities and small towns in Africa, America has deepened its presence in the high-tech goods market such as planes, medicines and medical equipment.
The US will increasingly focus on the high end market where it believes it has an edge even as China moves up the ladder in research and development (R&D) investments.
This is push for a larger share of the high end market is being shepherded by firms such as General Electric.
