Chinese investor, One Belt One Road Financing plans $300m mass housing in Nigeria
Leading Chinese housing solutions group, One Belt One Road Financing group from China has sealed new $300m deal with Nigeria’s ZVECAN Homes and Estate, a division of ZVECAN Consulting and Engineering Limited to deliver mass housing schemes for low and middle income earners in key business cities in Nigeria.
In his remarks during an interactive session in Abuja, Director of the One Belt One Road Financing Operation in China, Steven Kim, said that the gesture was part of measures to bridge the deepening housing scarcity in Nigeria.
Kim, who spoke through an interpreter, Mr. Sylvester Osagie Aigbe, said most of the $300 million would be spent on local raw materials and technical manpower, while some importations including some raw materials, not readily available in Nigeria, would be imported from China.
“The Chinese Government is reviewing some of its policies in some countries receiving aids and grants, some of the reviews involve direct investment in housing and other critical infrastructural needs. Like we are going to do in Nigeria, partnering indigenous organisations, we have been involved in similar mass housing schemes in Kenya and Angola, where we are building over 3000 units of different specifications of affordable housing,” Kim said.
Continuing, Ogbedo revealed that over 5,000 civil servants, who are the initial off-takers completing their documentaries with the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) and the Federal Government Staff Housing Loans Board (FGSHLB), would be the first beneficiaries of the homes to be built on request in one bed-room, two bedrooms and other bungalows in the approved locations in the FCT.
Ogbedo noted that the company found it necessary to update the developer’s inputs for the off-takers in the Federal Integrated Staff Housing (FISH) initiated by the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HoCSF) Mrs. Winifred Oyo-Ita, as part of measures by the Federal Government to provide affordable housing for the Federal Civil Servants before they retire from service.
