A US$960 million process of constructing and upgrading two key roads in Nairobi through public/private partnerships as part of the multinational Northern Corridor Transport Improvement Project (NCTIP) has begun.

The government of Kenya recently signed an agreement with Japan for partial funding of the construction of the Nairobi Western Ring Road. Japan gave Kenya an initial US$420,000 grant for the project.

NCTIP is a multi billion-dollar road and air-transport program that seeks to link the Great Lakes countries to Kenya ’s seaport of Mombasa.

The government will clamp down illegal builders in Kenya in effort to promote responsible and quality housing, minister for Housing Soita Shitanda has said.

In a speech read by the Director of Administration for Housing Abdul Mwasera while opening the 8th Property and Home Living Expo in Nairobi, the minister said that the ministry cannot stand by and watch the race for better housing turn into a legacy of poor construction and collapsed buildings.

“In the last three years, our country has suffered eight separate cases of buildings collapsing…

The widely anticipated Kenyan housing bubble may not happen any time soon as demand for houses among the middle income earners continues to escalate. The demand, according to property analysts, is so huge that it far outstrips the supply.

Aware of this trend mortgage companies have been on a conscious drive to expand their product range to cater for this new emerging market.

CFC Stanbic Bank, for example, announced recently an enhanced CFC Stanbic Bank’s home loan product that will see the introduction of Equity Release

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has unveiled plans to provide Kenya with US$320 million loan for a thermal power plant project as part of Tokyo’s support for the East African country’s efforts on climate change.

Hatoyama and Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga agreed Friday in their talks in Tokyo to cooperate in building momentum for the next key U.N. climate conference to be held in Mexico from late November to early December.

Japan plans to implement the loan by the end of next month, a Foreign Ministry official said.

The prices of houses in Nairobi’s upper and high-end markets are set to drop after two years of steady rise, a new housing index indicates.

The Composite Index and Hass Property Index developed by property firm Hass Consult indicate that house prices increased constantly from mid 2006 to 2008 and started levelling off heading towards 2009.

The two indexes show that the high-end property market was undergoing a market correction after an initial bubble burst in 2006.