Research Update

July 15^th

Two weeks into our research trip we have completed 6 interviews—in construction with China Wu Yi, China Road and Bridge, and Dalian, and in manufacturing with Beiqi Foton Motors, FAW East Africa, and BMG with Tiger and LiFun motorcycles.

We have interviewed two of the most prominent construction firms, but still need to get appointments with other big players—Shengli, Sinohydro, COVEC, CATIC, Zhongmei and so on. We have leads on several of the companies—it is shockingly difficult to get working phone numbers and email addresses for companies, let alone addresses for physical sites. But things are progressing well.

However, all of the “manufacturers” we have looked at have been mainly assembly rather than actual manufacturing. We have scheduled an appointment for next week with Aucma, which is an electronics manufacturer, where we think they actually manufacture things.

There seems to be a great deal of overlap in terms of the people who work at these Chinese firms. Chinese and Kenyans both move between Chinese construction firms, and the main investor in Beiqi Foton also owns Aucma. Most of the companies arrived in Kenya in the early to mid 2000s, but China Road and Bridge has been here for 30 years—arriving in the early 1980s!

From talking to people seems like the Chinese have had a hand in nearly every significant public infrastructure project in Kenya since 1982. However, we need to find some sort of paper trail to confirm this story.

This next week should be a busy one. We got a list from the Chinese Embassy of 64 companies which work in Kenyan. Some are in tourism, which we are not looking at, and perhaps half of the list lacks a working phone number, but on Monday we are going to call all the numbers we have and try to set up appointments for this week. We are also going out to Kenyatta University to meet with the director of the Confucius Institute there.