Africa

Mutanda, with operations in Katanga, is seen as one of Glencore's key growth assets in Central Africa's copper belt and the cash purchase sees the mining and commodities trading major acquire the remaining 14.5 percent indirect equality in the copper and cobalt producer.  

A city grows up over decades, an expression of the society that creates it. As society changes, the city becomes a repository of its own past, reflecting layers of its history. So Rome is a modern capital and at the same time a museum of a past civilisation. Not ideal for cars, but they live with it! But some of South Africa’s urban legacy is not so worthy of preservation, and they don’t need to live with it.

If any proof were needed to support the belief that Africa has become one of the world’s epicentres for mining success over the last decade, one arguably needs to look no further than Randgold Resources. An Africa-focused gold mining and exploration company, it has been the architect behind a host of major discoveries to date in Mali, the Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

South Africa’s first black president Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela died on Thursday December 5 at the age of 95 finally succumbing to to a lung infection that he had been suffering from for some time. When his death was announced, word spread quickly. South Africans flocked to pay tribute to this the father of the nation, while world leaders paid their tributes. President Obama said: "The world has lost an "influential, courageous and profoundly good man ... he no longer belongs to us. He belongs to the ages."

The Maputo Corridor is a great African success story in terms of regional integration between the regions of Swaziland, southern Mozambique and the industrialised regions of Mpumalanga, Gauteng and Limpopo. And it is a traditional route for people and goods to take when they want to get from South Africa to the sea. In the 1970s 40 percent of South Africa’s exports went out through Lourenço Marques, as the capital of Mozambique was then called. The situation has changed out of recognition since then.

It is hard to believe that it is only just 20 years since the Bharti group listed its telecommunications business on the Bombay Stock Exchange, soon after that bringing its cellphone operations together under the Airtel brand. At the time, just ten years from the founding of the business by Sunil Bharti Mittal, it had yet to extend its coverage to the whole of India, let alone the whole sub-continent, though by 2009 it had launched into international operations by launching a network in Sri Lanka.

Phalaborwa in Limpopo Province holds reserves of some 2.5 billion tonnes of phosphate-bearing ore, or five percent of proven world phosphate rock reserves. The Phalaborwa complex, within which Foskor’s operation is situated, is a geological intrusion caused by sub-volcanic activity approximately 2,000 million years ago. The complex is unique as it is host to many valuable minerals, the most relevant of which are phosphate, copper, zirconium, iron and vermiculite.

Kevin James acquired CBH in 2003 when it was a small and struggling operation processing just 250,000 chickens a week at its Bloemfontein location. However, having just shaken the dust of Zimbabwe, where he had built up a thriving poultry business, he hit an auspicious moment for the South African market, with feed prices declining and chicken prices firm. A year later he and his partners were able to buy and restart an operation in Mafikeng turning out 400,000 birds a week.

There are of course a number of reasons behind South Africa’s growing competitiveness amongst global markets in the last decade or more, however one that stands out in particular is the country’s modern transportation sector. South Africa’s roads, railways and ports are already regarded as a crucial engine for economic growth and social development, and stand to develop further still through the government’s stated intent to invest billions of Rand in the years to come.