Kenyan steel tycoon Narendra Raval reportedly plans to invest several millions of dollars in constructing a 750-million tonne cement plant in Kenya.
According to a report by Business Daily, the new project which will cost more than $200 million, will be built on a 20-hectare piece of land in Mariakani, Kilifi County, on Kenya’s coast.
In an interview with the Business Daily, Raval said he expects the new plant to provide 900 new direct jobs to Kenyans and to play a role in reducing general cement prices in the country.
“Construction of a new cement plant will further bring down the prices while reducing the long distances lorries cover to deliver cement to Kenyans at their doorstep,” he said.
Raval, who is one of Kenya’s most successful businesspeople, already owns a cement grinding and clinkering plant in the country through his manufacturing conglomerate, Devki Group.
Narendra Raval, 55, is the founder of Devki Group, a $650 million (annual revenues) Kenyan conglomerate that manufactures steel products, roofing sheets and cement.
The businessman, a Hindu of the Brahmin caste system, came into Kenya as a teenager to serve as a Priest’s assistant in a Temple in Kisumu, a commercial city in western Kenya. He soon got married, abandoned his priestly calling and started a trading and manufacturing business with his wife which snowballed into the Devki Group. The company now employs more than 4,000 employees and is the largest building materials company in East and Central Africa.
Raval did not immediately respond to an email requesting for comment.