Building on Kenya's Construction spree

The assembly plant produces an average of 10,000 units of dump trucks, buses, prime movers and commercial trucks annually. Before establishing its assembly line, Foton had contracted a local vehicle assembler, Kenya Vehicle Manufacturer, to assemble double cab and single cab pickups for the company. KVM is based in Thika, an industrial town in central Kenya.

The company later spread to other parts of the country such as Meru, Mombasa and Nakuru counties before opening a dealership in Kampala, Uganda.

Foton made inroads into the Kenyan transport sector after last year's signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Nairobi city government and the Beijing Commission of Transport to build and supply 2,000 buses for the city over a span of five years as part of the Kenyan capital's new Mass Public Transport System, which when implemented, is expected to streamline the chaotic public transport system and unclog city traffic.

The $70 million project will be implemented in phases. Foton will supply 266 buses, build bus stations and install a traffic management system in Nairobi for the first phase.

Daniel Chweya, a sales consultant at Foton East Africa Ltd, said in January 2014 that the Nairobi city government purchased 40 garbage trucks from the Chinese automaker, though the company has yet to finish supplying all the units.

Nairobi in January last year purchased 15 garbage trucks each with a capacity of 10 metric tons, and 25 dump trucks each with a carrying capacity of 25 tons for garbage collection in the city, he said.

Chweya also said the Makueni county government purchased a fleet of ambulances from Foton for the Kilome Sub-County Hospital.

"Our Foton View SC-2 is now very popular with hospitals because we build the ambulances from scratch. The Mbagathi District Hospital in Nairobi and the Kilome Nursing Home in Makueni all bought ambulances from us," he said.

The company also recently supplied Mount Kenya University with customized Foton buses to help students travel across the country for field excursions.

Chweya said the Foton brand is currently selling fast in Kenya mainly because the company's auto parts are readily available in the country. He added that the company has advantages over their competitors because it has several branch offices countrywide.

"We import complete knock down Foton trucks and assemble them at our Syokimau assembly plant. This gives us an edge over our competitors because we have ready parts in case of a breakdown," he said.

Complete knock down is a term used in the automotive manufacturing industry that refers to the auto parts needed to assemble a unit.