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Investors are financing bold new projectsCongo River City: projected view across the centre of Main Island, looking north toward the North Island and Brazzaville side
In recent years, Africa has experienced remarkable economic growth despite the effects of ongoing conflicts. There is enormous potential for highly profitable foreign investments, consistently higher than in most other regions of the world. Construction projects in Africa is not only about matching specifications to the best investment returns, it also requires hard work from highly qualified professionals with a deep understanding of the specific country’s institutions, using effective networks within the country.
In a few years from now, economic indicators will trigger an investment rush into sub-Saharan Africa and developer, Hawkwood Properties, is already targeting high profit margins for its shareholders in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The city’s rapid growth from 9.1 million in 2008 to a projected 13.8 million by 2020, proves likely to become the 11th largest city in the world by 2025, surpassing population counts of urban giants such as Cairo and Lagos. Development in the city is therefore inevitable, introducing the forward trend with nifty architecture.
Hawkwood Properties, with its sister company, Hawkwood Fund Management, is running the international Mukwa Investment fund from their African head office in Lusaka, Zambia, administering their new development in the north of Kinshasa known as La Cité du Fleuve – “white water lily”.
The frontrunner project is being constructed on a satellite islet, rising from the marshes alongside the humid shores of the majestic Congo River.
On 370ha, far from the rabble of the town centre, La Cité du Fleuve – also known as Congo River City – is a geotechnical innovation with high security models, incorporating residential units, offices, conference facilities, hi-tech shopping centre, attraction park and marina, with villas having direct access to the private beaches and lingering views of the river.
The development, floating on the riversides, will be linked up to dry land by two bridges and two modern freeways; the first one joins with Poids Lourds Avenue, leading onto Ndolo Airport; the second with the same Poids Lourds Avenue, but by way of the Funa River.
La Cité du Fleuve boasts with friendly and luxurious living which will, with no doubt, become a tourist focal point.
The Minister of Decentralisation and Regional Planning, Antipas Mbusa Nyamwisi welcomes this development, stressing it is an ambitious one, a result of renewed confidence in attracting foreign investors.
For China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), Africa has become well established as the single most important overseas market for China’s infrastructure development business.
In 2008, almost half of the company’s $9.6 billion overseas revenue came from projects in Africa with 28 projects, each worth more than $100 million apiece, with two of the deals – one in Angola and one in Libya – worth an estimated $1 billion each.
CCCC’s China Harbour Engineering Company Ltd won a $1.13 billion bid for construction and renovation work at the Angolan port of Lobito, once one of the country’s busiest import and export zones.
CCCC also has construction initiatives in a substantial number of other developing African countries, including Cameroon, the DRC, Gabon, Ethiopia and Algeria.
Another big project planned by Chinese companies is an airport outside Luanda, currently reported to be behind schedule.Progress has also been delayed on the reconstruction of three railway lines, including the legendary Benguela railway, which in colonial times linked the port of Lobito to mineral-rich areas of the DRC and Zambia. The other two railway lines are to link Luanda and the southern port of Namibia to the interior.
The Rwanda Development Board (RDB) unveiled $600 million real estate projects to attract potential investors, ready for development.
Prime Minister Bernard Makuza confirmed that Rwanda has a high demand for investment, despite the shortages of construction materials. “Rwanda has the most vibrant construction sector at the moment, whose dynamism needs the support of investors,” he said.
In South Africa, the multibillion-rand mixed-use development in Midrand’s Zonk’Izizwe Town Centre (an Old Mutual Property investment) was chosen as one of 16 founding projects of the Climate Positive Development Programme (CPDP).
The estimated R20 billion development will include a town centre, residential, office and retail property, constructed in phases spanning several years, connecting Johannesburg and Pretoria.
The project is a Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI), supporting the development of large-scale urban projects, demonstrating that cities can grow green building principles, striving to reduce the amount of on-site generated carbon dioxide emissions to below zero.
Zonk’Izizwe (“all nations”) Town Centre transforms one of the last remaining vacant sites in the area adjacent to the Grand Central Airport. The development will also incorporate a Gautrain rapid-rail station linking Tshwane, Johannesburg and OR Tambo International Airport by 2011.
The other founding project of the CPDP in SA is Menlyn Maine in Pretoria East, a multi-use precinct worth R7bn, incorporating a productive business ecosystem.
The building will be the first registered with the fledgling Green Building Council of South Africa
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