Heerim Strengthens African Orders... Establishes Dedicated Headquarters and Meets Tanzanian Prime Minister

On the 28th, at Heerim headquarters in Sangil-dong, Seoul, Chairman Jung Young-kyun of Heerim, Kasim Majali, the Prime Minister of Tanzania, and other officials are holding a meeting. / Photo by Heerim Architects & Planners

[Asia Economy Reporter Noh Kyung-jo] Heerim Architects & Planners announced on the 31st that it has established an Africa Business Division and met with key figures in the African region, including the Prime Minister of Tanzania and the Secretary-General of the Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission.

The Africa Business Division is a regional dedicated department created to strengthen orders in Africa. Taking this opportunity to establish the division, Heerim plans to comprehensively analyze market conditions by country, order characteristics, ordering trends, and networks to establish customized strategies for each region. For large-scale construction projects such as new town development and smart cities, which are of great interest in Africa, the company intends to respond by forming project-specific task force teams (TFTs).

On the 28th, they met with Tanzanian government officials, including Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa, to discuss cooperation plans. A Heerim official explained, "We introduced representative architectural designs to those who visited the headquarters and explained Korea’s new town development cases and future-oriented smart cities integrated with IT." He added, "We agreed to share related experience and know-how and cooperate to make Dodoma, Tanzania’s new administrative capital, an international smart city."

Heerim is participating in various new town and smart city development projects both domestically and internationally, including ▲ Sejong 5-1 Living Zone Smart City ▲ Kuwait South Saad Al Abdullah Smart City ▲ Phnom Penh River Park Smart City in Cambodia ▲ Baikal Smart City in Irkutsk, Russia ▲ Lido Smart City in Indonesia ▲ Almaty Eco Smart City in Kazakhstan ▲ Thu Thiem Smart City in Vietnam.

Prior to this, Heerim also met with Saratu Umar, Secretary-General and CEO of the Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC). NIPC is a government agency similar in nature to Korea’s Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) and serves as a gateway to Nigeria’s economy. Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy and most populous country, maintaining a close cooperative relationship with Korea.

During the meeting, Heerim expressed its intention to participate in architectural design and construction management (CM) services for airports, public offices, cultural and sports facilities, and residential complexes. NIPC reportedly promised active support. In particular, they agreed to have in-depth future discussions regarding infrastructure plans across Nigeria, including the administrative capital Abuja and the economic hub Lagos, as well as new town master plans and smart city development.

Heerim has been carrying out design and CM projects in several African countries. It first stepped into the African market in 2013 by winning the design contract for an administrative office building in Equatorial Guinea. Since then, it has worked on the design of Mongomeyen International Airport and Bata International Airport passenger terminals in Equatorial Guinea, and has performed various construction project CM tasks in Nigeria, Algeria, Morocco, Cameroon, Senegal, and Ghana in cooperation with the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

A Heerim official emphasized, "Korea’s capabilities in new town and smart city development projects are already well recognized, and Heerim possesses the world’s best design technology and experience in this field." He added, "Through experience in master planning major cities both domestically and overseas, we have secured considerable know-how and related data for smart city development." He concluded, "We will do our best to secure a competitive edge in the African market, which has great growth potential."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.