Four Carmakers in Talks with Kenya’s Local Assembler Simba Corp.

Kenya’s closely held Simba Corp. tells Bloomberg News it is in talks with four carmakers about assembling their vehicles locally.

CEO Adil Popat says two of the companies are Renault SA and Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. He declined to reveal the other two carmakers.

Simba owns Associated Vehicle Assemblers, a contract assembly plant in Mombasa that currently produces commercial vehicles for Foton Motor, Hino, Mitsubishi Fuso, Scania, Tata and Toyota. Another Simba unit is franchised to sell BMW, Mahindra, Mitsubishi Fuso and Renault vehicles.

Kenya is east Africa’s largest economy. Last year, the country’s new-car market totaled only 11,000 vehicles. But the market is expected to expand at a 14% annual rate over the next four years.

The country already has attracted CNH Industrial, Isuzu, Nissan, PSA Group and Volkswagen—all of whom declared plans within the past 18 months to launch assembly operations in Kenya. Popat tells Bloomberg the vehicle manufacturers are looking for government assurances that it will support local production and slowly phase out incentives for imported used cars, the market’s primary source of vehicles.