CMIG Drawin launches first prefabricated construction project in South Africa
China Minsheng Drawin Technology Group (CMIG Drawin), a unit of investment conglomerate China Minsheng Investment Group, has launched the John Dude New City project in South Africa's Gauteng province, marking its initial entry into Africa's affordable housing market, and the introduction of signature construction technology to the continent to help improving sustainable development of city construction in Africa.
CMIG Drawin will build 18,000 affordable homes, public leasing houses and commercial properties, and other public facilities in the John Dude New City, one of the 31 Mega City Projects launched in Gauteng that will improve infrastructure and create jobs for local residents.
The entire project will include properties built using CMIG Drawin's 'prefabricated construction' technology in an area of 1,228 acres with total planned investment of US$ 2.45 billion. Except for a small number of technical management experts, 95% of the staff will be hired locally to provide more employment opportunities in South Africa.
'We feel extremely honored to be able to participate in South Africa's project to build more affordable housing,' Jun Yin, CEO of CMIG Drawin said. 'This feeds into our mission to build partnerships with BRICS countries, and is an affirmation of CMIG Drawin's leading technology, which will be adopted in more projects in South Africa and in other overseas markets.'
Prefabricated construction allows standardized building parts to be made on production lines, before being moved to construction sites for assembly - a process that can be likened to building cars on an assembly line.
Compared with traditional construction methods, prefabricated construction is much more efficient, productive and eco-friendly, making it ideal for addressing South Africa's housing shortages with the promise of greatly-shortened construction time.
'The commencement of John Dude New City signified the officially activation of large scale urban projects in Gauteng', David Makhura, the Governor of Gauteng Province, said. 'which will bring even-increasing improvement to local residential district and space planning in order to achieve modernized and reindustrialized transition in our province.'
To better serve construction projects in South Africa, CMIG Drawin has signed framework agreements with subsidiaries of French construction group VINCI to jointly develop the prefabricated construction industry in South Africa, with John Dube New City being one of their first partnership projects.
VINCI, ranked by Forbes in 2017 as the biggest listed construction firm by market value, will also adopt CMIG Drawin's prefabricated construction techniques in other countries such as the Netherlands and New Zealand.
