TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
African countries look to Wika for infrastructure projects amid China’s dominance
Wika spokesperson Mahendra Vijaya said the company had received offers from countries like Tanzania, Madagascar, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Rwanda to work on their roads, bridges, power plants and governmental buildings.
Change Size
A billboard displaying Wijaya Karya's logo is seen near a project in Jakarta
(kontan.co.id/Daniel Prabowo)
P
ublicly listed state construction firm PT Wijaya Karya (Wika) is eyeing to accommodate increasing demand from Africa amid Chinese companies’ dominance in the region’s infrastructure projects.
Wika spokesperson Mahendra Vijaya said the company has received offers from countries like Tanzania, Madagascar, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Rwanda to work on their roads, bridges, power plants and governmental buildings.
The company expects to secure at least Rp 2 trillion (US$140.72 million) worth of projects from the deals, which will be fully revealed during the Indonesia-Africa Infrastructure Dialogue in Bali which will take place from Aug. 17 to 22, Mahendra said.
Roads and ports, as well as apartments and buildings – including the Rwandan central bank building – are especially of interest, he added.
“We enter into third world countries by offering win-win solutions so as to support our service exports and make it sustainable,” Mahendra told the press recently in Jakarta.
Investments have been pouring into the African continent in the past two decades to support infrastructure projects, with $386.1 billion in infrastructure financing having been disbursed from 2013 to 2017, according to the Infrastructure Consortium of Africa (ICA).
China has been the biggest financier for African infrastructure projects, second to the public sector, alongside donors and multilateral banks. China has participated in over 200 African infrastructure projects, according to Deloitte’s March report.
