East African Cables, a Kenyan based company is set to procure its Rwanda offices as the regional contributor to the markets of Burundi and the DR Congo (DRC), Business Times has learnt. The Kigali regional office is set to open by the end of March. This follows an announcement about the company’s expansion drive early this month by the newly appointed Chief Executive Officer, Mr. George Mwangi in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Addressing journalists recently, Mwangi said his company is set to enhance its continental reach with an ambitious expansion plan in the next three years. He added that the expansion will see East African Cables establishing a solid market presence in more than 12 African countries up from its current five countries market footprint by the year 2012. “As the regions premier cabling solutions provider, we have now moved to set the stage for a strategic market expansion drive,” Mwangi said. He added that the firm will be sparing little effort to attain its targets in the region. This market expansion drive, according to him is borne out of a need to further enhance shareholder value in lean times. In order to drive growth and profitability, Mwangi said that East African Cables will be seeking to strengthen its local market positioning while expanding its continental reach by enhancing its distribution and sales capabilities in the new markets. East African Cables manufactures a range of electricals, conductors and distributes data and telecommunication cables and accessories. In an interview with Business Times on Wednesday, Vicent Wanyoike, the resident Sales Manager for Rwanda confirmed the development and said that the company is now vetting for bigger office space and human resource to provide for the expansion. The new office will be responsible for distribution, marketing and selling of the entire company products range within the region. “We are expanding and increasing the capacity of the office to serve the new markets. Though we have served these markets before through distributors on a small scale,” he said. Wanyoike also noted that the Rwandan market has developed over the years after mapping counterfeit cables from China and Kenya with the help from Rwanda Bureau of Standards that had initially dominated the market in 2006. “It was very difficult to do business when we started because of fake cables from China and Kenya that were in circulation in hardware shops and sold cheaply. But the Rwanda Bureau of Standards has assisted us to stop the importation of fake cables and business is now going on well,” According to Wanyoike, East African Cables that are made purely out of cooper making them durable and efficient while counterfeit Cables are made out of a mixture of copper and aluminum. “Though the counterfeits are cheap, it is very risky to use them because they are susceptible to short circuits and less durable,” he said. Ends
