Africa

Headquartered in Bonn, Germany, and today employing in excess of 470,000 people in over 220 countries and territories worldwide, Deutsche Post DHL has become a name synonymous with couriering and logistics. The world’s leading mail and logistics group, it generated revenues of €55.5 billion during 2012, representing an increase of 5.1 percent comparing to previous year. This increase mainly reflects the exceptional market position that DHL maintains in the world’s growth regions, such as Asia and Africa.

“It was in 2006,” explains Clive Robinson, “that Curves first came to South Africa with a mission to launch the brand amongst the female population as an alternative to existing gyms and weight loss programmes. In 2007, the first Curves opened in Pietermaritzburg and within three years it had expanded to more than 100 franchises across the country, and ten franchises outside the borders of South Africa.”

Behind Asia, Africa is the biggest mobile phone market in the world, and the fastest growing anywhere on the planet with the number of subscribers on the continent growing by almost 20 percent year-on-year for the last five years. Analysts estimate that by the end of 2012 there were more than 735 million subscribers across the continent, a figure that is the equivalent of a 65 percent penetration rate.

With its famous white-on red logo, its seemingly endless list of 3,500 global products and its phenomenally successful marketing campaigns, there are very few, if any, companies anywhere that can claim to be as well recognised throughout the world as Coca-Cola. From its beginnings in Atlanta, in 1886, the subsequent 127 years has seen the company reach the point where it today boasts a presence in more 200 countries.

African Minerals (AML) started life in 1996 as the Sierra Leone Diamond Company, focused on Sierra Leone’s deposits of alluvial diamonds. In 2005 it raised £20 million on London’s AIM market and three years later confirmed its Tonkolili magnetite resource in Sierra Leone’s Northern Province.

Dubbed Hope City, it will be built on empty land and will employ approximately 50,000 people, and provide housing for 25,000.

The head of local technology giant RLG Communications, Roland Agambire, has revealed that his company was investing in Hope City with the aim of making Ghana globally competitive.

"What we are trying to do here is to develop the apps [applications] from scratch," he said. "This will enable us to have the biggest assembling plant in the world to assemble various products - over one million within a day.”.

The wind project, which will be the largest single private investment in Kenya’s history, has the added backing of the African Development Bank, Kenya Power and Vision 2030. The signing of the Letter of Support for the project will now allow it to enter the final phase of financing.

Bus transport could have been made for South Africa. Though it’s a big country with huge variety across its nine provinces, unlike many of its neighbours it has an excellent road network and one of the four major intercity bus lines travels to nearly every city and village. Not only is cross-country bus travel in South Africa cheaper than flying but it is far more satisfying. The Rainbow Nation’s landscape is as varied as its people.

According to the Zambia Tourism Board this nation surrounded by eight neighbours has over 40,000 kilometres of roads, only 8,200 kilometres of them tarred and another 8,000 kilometres all weather gravel road. The rest are made of compressed laterite and vary in condition from reasonable to rather bad, being vulnerable to the seasonal rains.

Derived from the Latin word “concretus”, meaning compact or condensed, concrete has had an immeasurable impact on both the ancient and modern world with its usage dating as far back as 800 BC. Today the global use of concrete is twice that of steel, wood, plastics and aluminium combined, and is only exceeded by the usage of naturally occurring water.