Jam-packed airports add to pressure

Experts also say, however, that Chinese airport construction companies need to negotiate many more hurdles if they are to reap more business in the continent.

Sean Xiao, a Canadian airport design expert who has worked on more than 30 airports in China, Canada, Iraq and the United States, says Chinese companies still lack experience in building airports outside their own country.

Xiao, now chief engineer of AVIC-Intl Airport Construction, is responsible for the designing of the new development site of the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. With Anhui Construction Engineering Group, AVIC-ENG won the bid for the $654 million project at the end of 2011. The upgrade will raise capacity to 20 million passengers and is due to be completed before 2017.

"Though many Chinese companies have been doing construction overseas, very few have designed any of those airports because many are unfamiliar with foreign standards," Xiao says.

Language is also a barrier, particularly the lack of highly skilled people with a good grounding in technical English, he says.

"Sometimes the design report is translated by someone whose English is heavily influenced by their Chinese way of thinking, rather than by someone who is an expert in airport design," Xiao says.

Many Chinese companies fail to come up to scratch in complying with international standards, and that applies to African countries, too, he says. That makes it difficult for Chinese companies to gain the confidence of customers and prospective customers who put a high premium on respecting such standards.

"The standard Chinese companies use may not be applicable in a foreign country, and Chinese companies may think local standards are unreasonable," Xiao says. "In such a case either side can win over the other if the standards tally with international ones."

Xiao suggests Chinese companies subcontract subprojects to companies from other countries and then send in Chinese engineers to take part in them, which would give them the chance to learn on the job.

Liu Qinghai, an Africa analyst at the Institute of African Studies at Zhejiang Normal University, says: "In project contracting, China and Africa differ a lot in regular practice, policy and law and regulation, efficiency and capital operation. However, many Chinese companies don't know the differences well. They lack experience, and some are not qualified in certain specialized fields. It takes time to know and get used to the local environment."

The underdeveloped industry in some African countries also poses challenges to Chinese companies because they have little access to the materials and electricity needed for airport construction locally.