Cement sales in Kenya hit a four-year high despite the Covid-19 lockdown that took a toll on the local economy. According to data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), cement consumption in the country hit 6.5 million tonnes last year up from 5.9 million tonnes in 2019, driven by developers who defied Covid-19-related restrictions to build their properties.
The 2020 cement consumption figures are 200,000 tonnes shy of the all-time record of 6.7 million tonnes that were consumed in 2014 during construction of the Nairobi-Mombasa standard gauge railway. Mega projects also contributed towards the rising cement consumption figures, with the National Construction Authority (NCA) saying it approved 85 such projects in the second half of 2020 – 12 of which were valued above Sh1 billion each.
Construction industry’s performance
The NCA had permitted 66 big-ticket projects in the second half of 2019, 10 of which were valued above Sh1 billion each. Some of the big-ticket projects currently underway include the Nairobi Expressway, Dongo Kundu Bypass in Mombasa, Nairobi Western Bypass and the upgrade of James Gichuru-Rironi highway.
The KNBS recently said the construction industry’s performance recorded a 16.2% growth in the in the third quarter of 2020 compared to a similar period in 2019, injecting Sh135 billion into the economy.
“The growth in construction industry was evidenced in the volume of cement consumed, which increased by 23.5% from 1.6 million metric tonnes in the third quarter of 2019 to 1.9 million metric tonnes in the review period,” said the KNBS Quarterly Gross Domestic Product report.
The statistics agency noted that import values of construction-related materials such as bitumen, wood products, timber, plumbing materials, lime, glass products, and cement rose in the period under review.
