Tatu City’s owner and developer, Rendeavour, will collaborate with Konza Technopolis to attract investors to Kenya, Rendeavour’s Executive Vice President Preston Mendenhall, and KoTDA’s CEO Eng John Tanui have jointly announced.
This comes at a time when the country is seeking to bounce back from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic that has increased uncertainty around investment opportunities.
The collaboration will focus on building both mega-projects’ investment policies and positioning the two cities at vantage positions for both local and international investors.
Speaking during a courtesy call to Konza Technopolis, Mr. Mendenhall said: “We are excited as Tatu City to be visiting Konza today. As sister cities with a common goal of easing the burden of urbanization in Kenya and also promoting investment in Kenya, we shall be working together in creating these opportunities.”
Speaking to the specific areas of partnership, Mr. Mendenhall said that Tatu City and Konza, as Special Economic Zones (SEZ), had identified a number of common interests to attract investment in Kenya.
“We have agreed to increase the frequency of our meetings. We have appointed teams to particularly look into the operationalization of the Special Economic Zones to attract local and foreign direct investments by creating a favorable economic environment,” Mendenhall said.
KoTDA’s CEO Eng John Tanui said that they were glad to continue with the collaboration following an initial engagement with Tatu City in 2017. He said that the collaboration will address mutual smart cities’ issues on continuing to improve the ease of doing business in Kenya.
“By Konza being a Special Economic Zone as Tatu is, we are both very keen to attract investment in Kenya. Tatu City and ourselves are very ready to collaborate with other government and private agencies to attract more investment in our country,” said Eng Tanui.
He said the two entities will share experience and insights and help each other in providing solutions towards building stronger strategies to attract investment in the country.
Both Tatu City and Konza City are building on 5,000 acres, each with mixed-use developments, including homes, schools, offices, medical centers, nature parks, sport & entertainment complex, and manufacturing for more than 250,000 residents and 30,000-day visitors each.
So far, KoTDA’s National Data Centre and Konza Complex are complete while horizontal infrastructure on Phase One is ongoing. In Tatu city, two schools educating 3,000 students daily, 60 businesses, and 3,000 homes are completed or under development.
