South Africa-based Best Shoes has been focusing its efforts on quality, customer service and strategy in order to continue growing its business.

One South African mining company is producing a refractory material on whose properties the world’s iron and steel producers depend.

In the production of iron and steel, refractory materials fall into the category of consumable commodity—hovering somewhere in the background until all the glamorous hard work has been done and the melted, smelted, refined liquid metal needs moving in a refractory lined vessel from one part of the plant to another.

Kuwait-based Al Fajr Al Jadid specialises in automation and control solutions for industrial applications. Director Ano Nazarian talks about the importance of innovation and keeping abreast of the latest technology.

PetroSA’s Project Ikhwezi initiative has been granted regulatory approval by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa).

The project, which is PetroSA’s flagship initiative to secure additional reserves to sustain its Mossel Bay gas-to-liquids (GTL) refinery, will produce gas feedstock from the offshore F-O development fields.

PetroSA said the approval is a major milestone, allowing the National Oil Company to produce natural gas from the F-O development fields when the project is commissioned.

Pratt & Whitney and IndiGo have signed a definitive agreement for PurePower PW1100G-JM engines for 150 Airbus A320neo family aircraft.

The agreement includes 300 firm PurePower PW1100G-JM engines with additional options and a long-term PureSolution maintenance agreement. Deliveries are scheduled to begin in 2015. 

South African pharmaceutical company Adcock Ingram has announced its acquisition of the Indian pharmaceutical brands of Cosme Farma Laboratories.

The deal, thought to be worth around R708 million, will see Adcock acquire the marketing assets of the pan-Indian branded sales and marketing pharmaceutical business, which is based in Goa and Mumbai, India.

BMW Group has today announced a £250 million investment in its UK manufacturing operations by the end of 2015.

The investment will be made at BMW’s manufacturing plant in Oxford, its steel body pressings operation at Swindon and its engine plant at Hams Hall near Birmingham, to support the company’s international growth strategy for the MINI brand with increasing volumes and up to 10 different models in the new line-up in the mid-term.

The move comes on top of the £500 million UK investment announced in June 2011 and will secure 5,500 UK jobs.

Chemicals manufacturer BASF has said it will expand its vinylformamide (VFA) capacity in Germany and China in order to meet growing global demand.

The company will expand its manufacturing plant for VFA in Ludwigshafen, Germany, as well as increasing its polymerization capacity. It will also build a new polymerization line for VFA in China for further processing of the feedstock from Ludwigshafen. This facility will be built at the Zhenjiang site, Jiangsu province.

What is the best business book you have ever read, and why?

The Wealth of Nationsby Adam Smith. It reveals the theories that have inspired powerful economic and social changes in the world.

Someone you would most like to have met, living or dead, and why?

Warren Buffet. I admire thisbillionaire investor’s unique approach to management and investment. The opportunity might arise in the near future to have lunch with him and potentially do business together.