Chinese vehicle firm Chery has partnered with Afrigreen Automobile to build an assembly plant in Kenya to produce electric vehicles (EVs).
The event held on Saturday attracted a high-level delegation from east China’s Anhui Province and senior Kenyan government officials.
Speaking during the event, Investments, Trade, and Industry, Principal Secretary Abubakar Hassan Abubakar said the cooperation is expected to boost the uptake of EVs in the country by making them more affordable and accessible.
“The assembly plant will help the transport sector to become greener as we currently have about 4,000 e-vehicles against a population of about 1.7 million cars on the roads,” he said.
Further, he said that a 20-million-U.S.-dollar investment is expected to create about 3,000 direct and indirect jobs in the country.
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According to Chery International Central Africa Region Director Hai Wei, Kenya was selected to establish the assembly plant because of its skilled workforce and position as an economic hub in Africa.
He said Chery has 26 years of innovative research that can help produce cars suitable for the local market.
For his part, Nishant Mishra, global head of Future Mobility of Afrigreen Automobile, said the assembly plant should be operational in the next month and have a capacity to produce between 5000 and 6000 EVs annually.
Similarly, he said that they will begin production of the Omoda sport utility model because it is suited for both urban and rural terrain and branch out to pickups next year.
